" On thy face of winning beauty let his eyes rest, in the morn. me; Ask not why, or where I hasten; only know 'tis best for thee! Farewell, sister! darling Alice!" "Wherefore, Maud? 'tis Philip speaks!" As from out the darkness springing, for an answering look he seeks; Now, again, the darkness gathers, as he sighs," "Tis I you shun! "Gentle sister of my dear one! for me plead, sweet Alice, plead! Tell her how she sadly wrongs me, if my faith she doubts indeed; Bid her speak some word forgiving, if through me these silent tears, Leave me not to wrestle longer with such chilling doubts and fears." As I hide, in arms caressing, Alice' downcast look of pain, blame." And the rainbow-tinted moonbeams fling a halo round her head, And the clouds that made the oriel sad and sombre-all have fled. LEFT WELL OFF. THIS is a story of deep and seemingly successful guilt; but that, in making it public, we are chargeable with rendering crime less repulsive let none assert, until they have read it to the ending. Among the wild but significant legends of Scandinavia there is a tradition of a witch who kept all around her in ruin and desolation, only by sitting in a certain fixed posture. I recall this legend whenever I think of old Mrs. Ainsworth. Mrs. Ainsworth, like that witch of the north, blighted the whole neighborhood, of which she was the chief proprietor, by the posture in which she chose to sit-I mean, with her hand tightly clutched over her pocket. The best part of her estates were in a manufacturing town, and their tenants willing to charge themselves with all necessary repairs, so that, shortsighted as her frugality may be deemed, her niggardly way of living made her extremely rich. A word or two on the circumstances under which Darwen Hall, where she resided, together with the other property, had first come into her possession, Her husband, William Ainsworth, had been the younger of two brothers. Christopher, the elder, had inherited a small estate in Lancashire. William had been left entirely penniless; but Christopher had insisted on giving him the half of what had fallen to himself. Both the brothers embarked in the cotton trade. Christopher was unlucky and lost his all; but William, thanks to the discovery of coal on the property his brother had resigned to him, grew, la no long time, to be a wealthy-very wealthy manufacturer and proprietor. He was not over-mindful of his ruined brother. But when that brother lay dying, while still a young man, with an only child to leave behind him, William was really sorry that he should have received so much and returned so little, and he told his brother (whose wife had preceded him to the grave) to have no fear for the future of the boy. "Of course," he said, "Richard's welfare would be his chief concern as long as he lived, and at his death he should leave him heir to the whole of his fortune". all which he fully intended to do; but William Ainsworth was one whose intentions of to-day were but sorry guides to his performances of the morrow. Richard, when thus left by his father, was just thirteen years of age, and his uncle was a bachelor little over forty. At the age of fifty, Mr. William Ainsworth rewarded his housekeeper for her long years of service by giving her-his hand. ness. I do not think the marriage very much increased his happiShe kept him in a bondage, which grew in rigor as he grew feebler and feebler in health. But the crowning folly and wrong of William Ainsworth was the very last act of his life. herself. It is, however, due to him to say, that he first obtained By his will he bequeathed his large property to Mrs. Ainsworth from her a solemn promise that all the wealth he now left her should, by herself, be left to Richard at her own decease. "If you only leave it to me for life," she said, "he'll spend it before he has got it, you know." But it is due also to her to say, that within a week after her husband's funeral, she had made and executed a will in strict accordance with his instructions. So poor William Ains worth had gone to his grave, trying to fancy that he had gratified the wife he so greatly feared, at the cost of no injustice to the nephew, whose claims upon him were so strong. His nephew, you may be sure, took no such view of the affair. Richard was about completing the really excellent education his uncle had given him; and, just when he needed money to start him in the world, he found himself virtually disinherited almost. Whether he would at any time touch a sixpence of the wealth he had been trained to expect depended on the good faith of the mean and sordid woman whom his uncle had so unrighteously favored before him. Granting that she might be trusted to observe her solemn engagement, who could tell into what hands she might fall, should her faculties diminish as years increased upon her? At the very best, she was but six-and-fifty years old, and twenty, or even thirty years might elapse ere her death made room for her heir. That he could expect nothing from her as long as she remained alive, Mrs. Ainsworth took an early opportunity of hinting in the most decisive manner she could. When, in spite of this rude intimation, he ventured to tell her that his uncle would surely have aided him, now that he was beginning to read for the bar, he got a reply from his tocle's widow, warning him that though she had kept, and desired still to keep, her promise of leaving him all at her death, still, if, not satisfied with his excellent prospects, he persisted in making demands for the present, she should feel it her duty to consider whether his uncle would really have wished his money to go to a person so very likely to squander it away. Poor Richard never again hazarded his future in so hopeless an enterprise as I enjoyed by its present owner as by himself, will bo matter of an appeal to the pity or justice of his aunt. surprise to no one. Only just before bis marriage-for in spite of his poverty he married at six-and-twenty-he wrote informing her of the step contemplated by him, but with no satisfactory result. He had set himself resolutely to battle against misfortune, and, since wealth for the present had eluded his grasp, to show that he could do without it, he might even have come to exult in the cruel disappointment of his youth, and it might never have fallen to my lot to write the dark story of his actual life. But he was hardly of a stomach to face and defy the obstacles to a poor man's advancement. And ever present was the know ledge, that any day might put to his lips the golden draught which for the present eluded him, like water the thirsty Tantalus. Any morning might bring him the news that Mrs. Aiosworth was dead, and himself translated, as from a waste wilderness, into a land overflowing with milk and honey. His But no such day came, and Richard Ainsworth dragged on a weary life, kept from absolute ruin by the small income which came with his wife, and by one or two little legacies which dropped in from his relations on the side of his mother. uncle Tackaway, an ex-captain in the merchant service, left him a few hundred pounds, and a few rarities collected by him from different regions he had visited in his sailor's career. Most of them went to ornament the parlor of Richard's house in the New Kent Road-for to that transpontine locality did his straitened circunstances confine him. But Captain Tackaway's cabinet had held one curiosity which, as he once told Richard while alive, he would not have bequeathed save to a thoroughly honest man. It was a colorless gum, prepared from the juice of some South American shrub, and well known to the Indian tribes of a certain region. Whether on the tips of their darts and arrows, or dissolved in drink, it was alike undiscoverable in i's traces, and fatal in its effects. The few Europeans who were acquainted with it were very backward, considering the wicked uses which might be made of it, in extending that knowledge to any one besides. Richard locked the perilous treasure carefully away, and it slumbered harmless enough, for I know not how long a period. I dare say many whom nothing would tempt to commit a crime might feel a vague sense of triumph at having so fearful a power in their hands. And such, I believe, was the nearest approach to evil its possession excited in Richard's thoughts. He had now, for some years, had no reminder-no, not so much as a formal note-of his detested aunt's existence; and poverty, never distant from his door, now threatened to take permanent possession of bis house. It happened that one of his old Cambridge friends undertook, once upon a time, tue temporary curacy of the village near which Mrs. Ainsworth resided. He thought with increasing frequency of the fearful weapon which lay within his power. At one time, pressed by new diffi. culties, he would resolve to trust in Providence no more, but with his own hand to accomplish the event which would change the world altogether to him. Then again he would repel the temptation, and resolve that, lose what else he might, he would never part with his integrity. He would put the crime beyond his reach by destroying the deadly thing. But this intention he never carried into practice. And so, for months more, he went on, tossed to and fro between evil and good, his wife believing that his frequent fits of melancholy were only due to their cruel embarrassments, which now began to press on them with greater hardship than ever. One morning, when the month of May was nearly half over, he told her that, ill as they could afford it, he must take a short excursion into the country, or he should very soon be as bankrupt in health as in wealth. Mrs. Richard, the most loving and unselfish of wives, cheerfully seconded the proposal. His demeanor for some time past had been afflicting her with horrible fears, lest, under the continued pressure of trouble, his reason might be giving way, and such a loss no future gifts of fortune could possibly repair. So she urged on the plan with every argument she could call to mind. He was to go alone, and proposed to return within a very few days. On the evening before his departure he rambled through different regions of London, making several purchases, and never buying more than one thing at any single shop. He was to go to Matlock, and thence take a walking excursion into some of the choicest scenes of Derbyshire. He gave an assumed name at the Matlock hotel. There was little likeli hood that at that part of the year he would meet any one who knew him. If he did, they would very plausibly set down his change of name to a well-grounded dread of pursuing creditors. One Saturday morning, having arrived the previous evening, he started off, equipped as for an excursion, and carrying a small carpet-bag in his hand. He walked a good distance out of Matlock, in a northerly direction; then coming to a wood, through which lay a pathway, he prepared for his next proceeding. Ensconcing himself in the shelter of the trees, he unlocked his carpet-bag, and took out of it the things be bad brought from London. Among them were a coat and "wideawake," greatly differing from those with which he had walked out of Matlock. These he hastily assumed. Then he took out a black wig, a pair of black moustaches, and a pair of black eyebrows, placing each according to its proper destination. Then, with a mixture out of a bottle, he stained his face and hands, giving them the dark yellowish tint of a Spaniard or Italian. Then, closing the bag, he wrapped it in a large red handkerchief, and carried it as a bundle. The stick with which he had left the hotel he threw away, likewise the bottle he had been using. Then emerging from the wood by the gate at which he had entered, he walked until he reached, by a cir This enabled Richard to gather a few.confidential particulars as to Mrs. Ainsworth's manner of life, and other such things; whether her behavior indicated any softening of disposition as she grew older; whether any symptoms portended that her life would soon reach its termination; and other matters of a `similar kind. The curate, who knew why these questions were interesting to his friend, though he knew not how present pov-cuitous route, a station from which be could find his way into erty intensified their interest, wrote back a lively and minute account of such matters as he had been able to collect. Mrs. Ainsworth grew meaner as she grew older. Some said her health was precarious; but nothing apparently forba le her living for several years to come. (She was only sixty-seven now.) In spite of her desperate love of money, she took some care of her life. "Every Saturday afternoon," wrote Richard's correspondent, taking him at his word, and giving minutely all he could tell-“every Saturday afternoon Druggerby makes up for her a small bottle of quinine draught, with which, I suppose, she braces herself up for the devotions of Sunday. Any time between two and five on Saturday you may see the little round phial, wrapped in its blue paper, lying on the counter of the shop." A few other particulars were added, not material to the story. It is seldom safe, and never agreeable, to profess to trace the rise and progress of an evil purpose. That Richard should meditate bitterly on the wealth which was about as little Lancashire; and-to make short a story there is no need for prolonging-one o'clock on that day found him entering the manufacturing village of Darwen. A mile or two off, but very little incommoded by the smoke of the tall chimneys, stood the Hall, which, had justice been done him, would long ago have been his home. He took some refreshment at the "Black Bull;" and, shortly after two o'clock, walked quietly up the village, looking out for the apothecary, Mr. Druggerby. He approached the win. dow just as the man of medicine placed on his counter (visible from the street) a small phial wrapped up in blue paper. Richard entered the shop at once. "I have got a pain in my chest," he said; "will you mix me a little ginger and soda, or something of that sort?" Mr. Druggerby suggested some additional ingredient, and turned round to the bottles which graced the wall behind him. While he did so, Richard hastily exchanged the phial on the counter for one of the same size, which he took out of his pocket-for he had brought with him prepared bottles of two or three different sizes, each containing a quinine mixture. Then he complained of feeling faint and requiring air. He would, he said, return in a few minutes and take the draught, which could be mixed for him in the interval. Taking in his pocket the phial he had removed from the ounter, and which was addressed, "Mrs. Ainsworth, Darwen Hall-to be taken as before," he walked slowly towards a field which lay near, for one lengthy street constituted the entire village. When there, he stooped down, as if in pain, and (so carefully that one standing within a foot of him might not have detected the act) he poured on the ground the contents of the bottle he had taken, and refilled it from one of those he carried in his pocket. Then he returned to the shop, drank off the mixture which lay ready for him, and, watching his opportunity, restored to the counter the phial he had removed a few minutes before. The blue paper had not been sealed up, although even for that emergency he was not unprepared. So neatly and so carefully had he done the deadly work, that any suspicion of the thing was improbable in the last degree. Once more quitting the shop, he walked up the village in the direction of the Hall. So many years had elapsed since last Mrs. Ainsworth had seen him, that, disguised as he was, she would never detect him should he anywhere encounter her. His friend the curate had quitted Darwen some time before. He walked to the lodge gates of the house which might so soon be his, noted how the grass-grown walks bore witness to the niggardly spirit of the woman who barred him out of his rights. He thought on that ever-memorable Saturday, could it be the will of Providence that she should any longer cumber the world -and him? To remain all night in the neighborhood was too hazardous a thing to be thought of. A stranger, unable to give any clear account of himself, stopping in a place with which he had no ascertainable connection, just when the neighborhood is startled by the sudden death of its wealthiest inhabitant-this were a coincidence far too striking to escape comment and inquiry. So, trusting that no accident would mar his plot-successful thus far he quitted the village, reversed, when at a safe distance, the disguise process through which he had gone in the morning, and, without revisiting Matlock, returned to his home in time for church on Sunday morning. We must now record one or two things which occurred at Darwen after his departure. Early that evening Mrs. Ainsworth received, in obedience to her summons, a visit from her lawyer. He had ridden over from Churley, a town about five miles away, and was now sitting at tea with her in the parlor, which looked out on a small, but very pretty park. But the poor woman had no eye for the beauties of nature. She made the tea, putting in a scanty allowance out of the caddy but a liberal supply from a bottle containing carbonate of soda, the only bottle she did not keep under lock and key. Christie M'Tarnie, her Scotch servant, was buttering the bread beside her. "Oh dear! not so much butter as that, Christie!" she sharply exclaimed for Christie had erroneously believed that Mr. Deeply's presence would authorize a departure from the rigid economy of ordinary days-"not so much butter as that! How you are wasting my property, to be sure! You know I never have it in that way; and I know Mr. Deeply likes his bread as I do-rather dry." The lawyer, who had a decided weakness in favor of hot buttered cakes and kindred delicacies, gave a ghastly acquiescence, and Christie redistributed the butter on the old conservative principles. The meal over, she carried the tea-try out of the room; and Mrs. Ainsworth addressed herself to the business of the evening. "I have felt a little unwell lately, Mr. Deeply, and I wanted to see you respecting my will. You know I did as my husband wished, and made a will leaving to his nephew all he left me. But since then I have managed, being very careful, to put by a few savings, and I have no idea of Mr. Richard having them. He'll be rich enough without, in all conscience; so I want you to draw a codicil, with some legacies to relations of my own." "Certainly, Mrs. Ainsworth. By the way, may I ask if you have lately heard from Mr. Richard ?'' "Not I, indeed! not once since he was married. He wrote to me then, to say he was going to take a wife; and I wrote back to say that I thought him very foolish; and that was all the writing between us. He knows he'll get nothing from me as long as I'm alive; and so he never writes, and it's much the better he shouldn't." "Ah, my dear madam, don't be too hard upon him! I hear he is miserably poor; and it's hard, you know, to make an empty sack stand upright. We that are well off" "Speak for yourself, Mr. Deeply, if you please." "Well, ma'am, we that are comparatively well off should make allowances for him." "I know you persist, like other people, in thinking me rich, Mr. Deeply," resumed the woman, forgetting she had just said how rich her heir would be, if he inherited but a part of her present possessions. "I was left pretty well off by my husband, and I've been careful since then; that's all." Mr. Deeply knew that the savings, of which his client spoke so modestly, could not be very far short of sixty thousand pounds; but assured that she meditated no such thing as disinheriting her nephew, he was content in minor matters to humor her. After further conversation it was arranged that he should renew his visit on Monday. Meantime Mrs. Ainsworth would draw up a list of her intended legatees and the several sums she designed to leave them. As soon as Mr. Deeply had driven from the door she called for a candle (not candles), and addressed herself to the distribution of her ready money. She sat writing, and erasing and re-writing, for some time, then pushed the paper from her, as though, even in imagination, the parting with her money was abhorrent to her. "Let me see! I might leave two thousand to my cousin, Alice Howarth, and one thousand to William Longworth ;-but I don't know; should I wish to alter it, if they don't behave well to me, it would be frightfully expensive to make a new will. They all look upon me as a person to be preyed upon. I think-" Then she rang the bell, which the servant presently answered. “Christie,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, "has Druggerby sent me my draught as usual ?'' "Oh yes, ma'am. Will you take it now ?" "Why, upon my word, Christie, I've been thinking it's a terrible expense to me having those draughts once a weeek. I thought of trying if I could do without them; but then, you know, if I became really ill, I should have such expenses as would nearly ruin me! I think I will take it; but not nowby-and-bye. You can bring it when I go to bed. Christie, I've been talking with Mr. Deeply about arranging the disposal of my little property. Now, if you continue to satisfy me, why, besides all you get now, you'll one day find yourself handsomely remembered. Only recollect I can't afford any waste in my house!"' And Christie retired from the room. Her mistress resumed her occupation, and continued writing down figures and names for an hour or two more; then she rang the bell; and long before eleven the house was dark and quiet. About eight o'clock the next morning the people of Darwen were startled from their late Sunday slumbers by the tidings that Mrs. Ainsworth had been found dead in her bed. The poison of which Richard had availed himself was said, by the few who were acquainted with its qualities, to leave no traces in its victims. And the coroner's jury, who sat in Darwen Hall, reported the cause of death as natural, though startling. Mr. Druggerby stated the composition of the draught, which, as Christie deposed, her mistress had taken before retiring. And the physician from Manchester designated the fatal complaint by some long name, which I will spare myself the trouble of writing and you the trouble of reading. The anger of her relatives (who found, from the paper left in her desk, what handsome legacies they had narrowly missed receiving) I may also leave to your imagination. But Richard acted very generously, and gave large sums to all of them who could_be_thought to stand in any particular need of money. He meant in all things to be a liberal steward | give offence-don't you think you may be in some danger of of the wealth which had come to him in even greater abundance than he had expected. He felt, "To gain all this, I have taken a bold departure from the right; only by doing the utmost good with my wealth can I hope to be clear in God's sight or my own." Their sudden prosperity came on Mr. and Mrs. Richard in time for them to enjoy the latter part of that year's London season. Quitting the New Kent Road for ever, they took for the month a set of apartments somewhere near the Regent's Park. In August they proposed to give themselves what they had long vainly desired-a continental tour. In autumn they would return home, to find Darwen Hall refitted and refurnished, and to commence that long course of benevolence and hospitality of which Darwen was henceforth to be the favorel scene. They sat together one morning in July, talking of their past privations and future prospects. Christie M'Tarnie, at her own desire, had been permitted to enter their service. She might butter bread in freedom now. The beggar-maid whom King Cophetua made his queen can hardly have had a larger accession of comforts than a mere change of service had brought to poor Christie; but, as Mrs. Richard was remarking to her husband, the Scotch woman looked as if something were on her mind which she wished, but could not resolve, to make known. Especially, if anything was ever said about her dead mistress, Christie betrayed confusion, and seemed to hesitate whether she should speak or be silent. Richard told his wife that he had no pleasant thoughts connected with Mrs. Ainsworth, and would rather dismiss her from his remembrance. mistaking reverse of wrong for right? I fear, and I tell it you, because I feel it were not honest in me to keep it back, that the help you so generously extend is not always well received-that is, not always rightly used." Richard was not offended. He saw that Mr. Creed's motives were excellent, and he promised that henceforth his charities should be not less profuse, but more discriminate. But when it was in his mind to proclaim that none but the "deserving" should receive, something from within him asked how he, of all men, dared to think of anybody as unworthy of his doles. "Hypocrite!" said the inner voice, "because you could not endure poverty, and thirsted for wealth, you took the life of a fellow-creature who stood in your way! What were your very worst privations compared to those which daily compass about the people whom you call undeserving? What if there were tell-tales who could whisper the facts of your life to them? Why, the most destitute and disreputable of them all would start away from you, even if you held out a purse of gold to them! You, forsooth, to talk of giving only to the 'deserying' poor !" So Richard Ainsworth found out that even unsuspected crime is likely to be a source of weakness to the secret criminal, and cripples the energies he would exert for good. When the new reign had lasted for six months, I grieve to say that the moral condition of Darwen was a little worse than under the selfish and pitiless rule of the days gone by. And Richard could not obtain what most he coveted, such evidence of good done by him as might be thought to atone for the fearful guilt that had enriched him. Persuaded that it is not so easy to be a good steward of wealth, “You look dreadfully dull, my dear,” he presently remarked. he was glad, when spring came round, to remove for a season to "I was only thinking," she replied. "But I don't like to see you thinking, my love. You can very well afford to do without thinking now; so pray don't think!" No, he was in earnest! he did not like her to be thinking. He felt as King Henry may have felt (Fair Rosamond's King Henry) when he heard that Queen Eleanor had taken a fancy to ramble about Woodstock Forest. Thinking people are often led by their thoughts into strange conclusions. With such a secret hidden in its depths, the less the labyrinth was trodden the safer and the better for him. "You are not so absurd," he asked, a minute or two after, "as to suspect the poor woman of having caused the old lady's death, sudden as it was?'' "My dearest Richard, how can you suggest anything so frightful? Poor woman! I believe her as incapable of harming anybody, even in thought, as you are, dearest. But I was thinking how mercifully-though it seems too much like rejoicing at another's death-we have been rescued from our poverty just when it seemed at its worst. I told you God would not forsake us, would we but wait His proper time; and you see you have not trusted Him in vain." Within two months of Christmas they had taken possession of Darwen. And great indeed was the joy, both of rich and poor, at the new order of things which had begun to reign there. Not that Richard threw himself into extravagance; he had been far too intimate with Dame Poverty not to take heed that his parting with that severe, but sometimes serviceable schoolmistress should be a leave-taking for ever; but with estates yielding six thousand a year, and forty or fifty thousand in ready money, he was entitled to indulge a little in the luxury of scattering. So vast were the largesses bestowed upon the poor, that even the vicar of the parish, than whom none had more heartily welcomed the change of dynasty, ventured to hint that a virtue in excess may become a vice. "But surely, Mr. Creed," said the new squire of Darwen, "you must know how bad a thing it is when the rich withhold their money?" London. Once there, he sought the desired relief to his conscience by throwing himself into the benevolent work so largely provided by that enormous metropolis. He found, if not all the peace he sought, at least some distraction in the work, from the thought which gnawed him, save when the present shut out the past. And he did not despair, as time passed on, he should succeed in pushing to a further and further distance the troublous thoughts which haunted him. Christie had now gone the way of all middle-aged domestics— that is, she had married, and devoted part of the very handsome dowry bestowed upon her to the purchase of a publichouse in Paddington. She had grown much attached to her new mistress; and as the "Bagpiper was not far from Hyde Park gardens, Christie paid frequent visits to Mrs. Ainsworth in her London home. " One moonlight night, a little past midsummer, and at about twelve o'clock, Richard walked home from a dinner in Grosvenor square, for he had begun to keep great company now. He met the policeman just as he turned into the enclosure, pacing his monotonous way. If that policeman could have known under what circumstances, ere passing that spot a second time, he would be summoned to behold the gentleman now walking away from him! Richard saw by the light in his bedroom that his wife had already retired. As he neared the front door it was opened to let some one pass out. That person was Christie. He thought she looked a little afraid of him. He said some word in answer to her respectful, though hurried greeting. Then he entered the house, and went upstairs to his wife at once. There was a peculiar paleness about her face; but, in answer to his eager inquiries, she declared herself to be quite well, only a little fatigued. "So you've had Christie again," he remarked. "I met her going away." Yes; and do you know, I've found out now why it was that the poor woman always looked so confused whenever we spoke about her old mistress! Poor Christie! if anybody had been wicked enough to accuse her of putting anything into the medicine that night, she could have given them a very complete answer. I now know-” Why, what old woman's stories have you and she been talking? I do wish, Emma, you'd drop that matter, once for all." "My sweet love, I shall drop it; only let me explain myself. |