'Your love,' cried I, "neither merits my reproach, nor yet calls for my praise. It depends not on ourselves to withold our affections, as it depends not on us to renovate a worn-out passion.

Is it then true,' cried Euphroysne, that you love me no more?'

Has not that question been answered already?' said I peevishly but you will not understand unless all is spoken !

At these words Euphrosyne put her hands to her ears, as if fearing to hear her formal dismission; and immediately run to shut herself in her adjoining chamber. I left the wayward girl to the solitude she sought, and, unable to obtain any refreshment at home, immediately went out again. Exhausted with watching, sleep overcame me in the Coffee-house where I had sought my breakfast, and as soon as I felt somewhat recruited by its welcome intrusion, a detachment of our party carried me away by force, to make me woo afresh fickle fortune at the gaming table. Within the irresistible influence of its magic circle, I stayed, and played, and drank, and slept---and played, and drank, and slept again---till, reeling out in the dark, to go home, I fell from the steps, sprained my ancle, cut my face, and lay for a time senseless on the pavement. Carried in again, as soon as discovered in this plight, it became my fate to be tied by the leg in the very gambling room, where the hazardous shake of the elbow had already kept me spell bound so long.

I was so far an economist of time, as always to devote that of forced confinement to the irksome business of reflection; and I had a great deal of that sort of occupation accumulating on my hands, to employ my present leisure. The unconcern of my pretended friends on seeing me suffer, very soon made me draw unfavourable comparisions of their sentiments with those of Euphrosyne. Granting that she had been too usceptible before she knew me, how patient, how devoted had she shown herself ever since! yet how cruel the return I had made, and how deep the last wound I had inflicted!

The thought grew so irksome, that, not daring to send for my mistress among a set of scoffers, and yet impatient to make her amends, I crept, as soon as the dawn again arose, 'off my couch, stole away, and limped home.

When I knocked at my door, no one answered from within. Louder I therefore knocked and louder; but with no better success. At last my heart sunk within me, and my kness began to totter. Euphroysne never stirred out-could she-? I dreaded to know the truth, and yet I was near going mad with the delay. She might be ill, and unable to come down, though not beyond the reach of succour, or comfort of kindness. It was possible she heard me, and had not strength to answer, or to let me in. Timely assistance still perhaps might save her; even tardy tenderness, though shown too late to arrest her fleeting soul, might still at least allay the bitterness of its departure. A word, a look of sympathy, might solace her last moments, and waft her spirit on lighter wings to heaven.

Frantic with impatience, I endeavoured to break open the sullen door, but could only curse its perverse steadiness in doing its duty. In despair at the delay, I was going for an axe to hew it from its hinges, when an old deaf neighbour, who began to suspect she heard a

noise, came down half dressed to lend her assistance.' She employed nearly as much time before she let herself out, as I had lost in trying to get in. At last, however, her feeble efforts were crowned with success. Forth she came, and put on her spectacles to scruti nize my person. A deliberate survey having satisfied her respecting my identity, she thrust her withered arm deep in her ample pocket, and drew out fifty things which neither of us wanted, before she ended by producing the key of my lodging, which she put into my hands with a low courtesy, as having been left, in her care by the Lady who had taken her departure. Thank God!--I have not killed her!' was my first exclamation. C That weight at least is off my burdened mind!' and as soon as I had sufficiently recovered my breath, I inquired of the old woman the time and circumstances of Euphrosyne's disappearance :—what conveyance had taken her away; in what direction she went; and above all what message she had left?

These were useless queries, and the frequent repetition of them for the purpose of being understood, a fruitless expenditure of breath. It took me half an hour to make my neighbour hear me; and when I succeeded at last, so near was she to dotage, that I could make nothing of her answers. On my asking as the least perplexing question, how long the key had been in the old goody's possession, she could only say ' ever since it had been given her.'

Despairing of more explicit intelligenee outside my threshold, I went in, and in three strides reached the top of the stairs, and my own empty room. From that I ran into the next, equally empty and desolate; looked upon every table and shelf, under every seat and cushion, in every box and drawer, and behind every chest and wardrobe. My hopes were to find some letter, some note, some scrap of paper, written, if not in kindness, at least in anger, to inform me which way my poor girl had fled: but I looked in vain; there was nothing!

I possessed no clue whatever to a probable solution of my doubts; I could form no opinion on the strange event; I sat down in mute amazement, trying to think, and yet finding no point on which to fix my thoughts. At last, as my eyes continued to wander in total vacancy round the room, they fell upon some writing which assuredly had not been intended to court my sight; for it run along the skirting of the wainscoat, and could only have been written by Euphrosyne, with her pencil as she lay on the ground. I stooped down to read, and only found some broken sentences, probably traced by my mistress when she left me the last time to seek refuge in solitude. The sense seemed addressed to herself more than to her destroyer, and the words were mostly effaced :-thus ran the few legible lines.

66

At last he has spoken plainly !—I shall go-no matter where!--Let him rejoice. On boasting of his triumphs of unsuspecting innocence, he may now add---I have ruined Euphrosyne! '---and be proud to think a greater fall from purity to corruption, from honour to infamy, and from happiness to misery, was never achieved by human hands! Then followed a string of half obliterated words, among which all I could make out was an invocation to the Almighty, not to withhold from me its blessings, not to visit on Selim poor Euphrosyne's wrongs! A thousand daggers seemed on reading this sentence to pierce my heart at once.

Every thing remained as I had left it, except Euphrosyne alone! She had taken nothing with her; for she had nothing to take the last articles of her apparel worth any money, had been sold to supply her necessities, or rather my extravagance.

A film now all at once dropped from before my eyes, and my former behaviour presented itself to me in a totally new light. Though I might still believe,― and indeed now most anxiously wished to believe, for the relief of my goaded conscience-that Euphrosyne had not at all times been equally watchful of that perfect purity she boasted; that in some unguarded moment the inexperience of early youth had suffered her virtue to contract a slight speck; that the tale so boldly told by her waiting woman was not wholly without foundation: yet on contemplating her conduct on that eventful day, when she might for ever have wrapped every former stain in the ample impenetrability of the nuptial veil, but with a magnanimous disdain of meanness or subterfuge, resigned herself to poverty, prosecution, and disgrace, for the sake of rigid righteousness, I could not doubt that already at that period, at least, the mental corruption, the taint of the soul (if ever it had existed) had been in the eye of supreme mercy washed away by repentance, and had left the whole crime of plunging a noble creature into inextricable ruin chargeable to my account alone!

And supposing that even the tale of Euphrosyne's early frailty itself---that only sheet anchor of my conscience amid a sea of distracting doubts---should after all turn out a mere fabrication, as seemed from Sophia's unprincipled conduct a thing not impossible: supposing the whole first chapter of Euphrosyne's short history should have been nothing but a scene of artless innocence; nay, supposing that the thoughtless girl should really have been ignoront even of the assignation whence arose all her sorrows; supposing that when she first came in agony to my abode only to avoid a public expulsion from her own, she should have had nothing with which to reproach her own heart, but some latent sparks of love for her despoiler; supposing I thus had only plunged into everlasting perdition a being, throughout the whole of her once happy career as unexceptionable in conduct as she had been enviable in circumstances: and that, for no purpose but to end her race of undeserved sufferings, by turning her out of doors, and forcing her upon the wide world without a friend, a relation, or a home,---and at a time too when her situation demanded more than ordinary tenderness! the thought was too dreadful even for me to bear; it racked me to the soul; and what rendered my remorse doubly pungent, love itself, that love which I had thought long annihilated, seemed to re-enter at the rents torn in my heart by pity. A thousand excellencies in my mistress, before unheeded, now flashed upon my mind. From the embers of a more sensual flame, extinguished almost as soon as raised, now burst forth a brighter intellectual blaze never before experienced; as from a body in dissolution arise flames of pure ethereal fire.

Sorrow, self-reproach, and uncertainty seemed for a while to deprive me of all power of exertion; but the moment a ray of hope roused me from motionless dismay into fresh activity, I ran frantic all over Smyrna in search of my lost mistress. I abruptly stopped in the street every person, high or low, male or female, whom

I thought likely to have witnessed her escape; I forci bly invaded every house in which I fancied she might be concealed. No place capable of harbouring any thing in the human shape, and which I dared investigate, did I leave unexplored. Of the individuals assailed by my inquiries, some laughed, some took offence, some reproached me for my inconsistency, and some supposed me to be a maniac broke loose from kis confinement. I minded not their surprise or their scoffing, but continued my pursuit while I had strength. Alas! I continued in vain. No Euphrosyne could I find.

Reluctantly I now again turned me to the abhorred Sophia, to assist me in my labour. The wretch had not only deceived me, betrayed my Euphrosyne, and, by divulging all she ought to have concealed, involved the one in ruin and the other in disgrace: she had even as if on purpose daily to enjoy the shame cast on Chrysopulo's house, hired a lodging directly opposite his gate; but vast failings are overlooked in those whose aid we want. I hied me to the ex-suivante full of conciliatory speeches; she met them with assurances of equal contrition, and expressed so much regret for her indiscretion, so much compassion for Euphrosyne, and so much sympathy with me, that, in view of the readiness she showed to second my search, all was, or appeared to be forgiven. We shook hands, I made fresh promises, and Sophia entered upon fresh services.

My resolution this time was formed, and will be allowed to have been unexceptionable. The instant fortune crowned our united labours, Euphrosyne was to receive the meed of her long and patient sufferings, or at least, the offer of every reparation which I could make for my manifold offences. Not only I meant immediately to proclaim her my honoured, my wedded, my inseparable wife; but what to some might seem more difficult, or more problematical, I intended to become myself the best and most faithful of husbands.

Fate allowed me full time to study the requisites of that new character. Our twofold search did not turn out more successful than it had done before my singlehanded endeavours: by no means, however, for want of activity in Sophia. Like Satan, her master, she seemed endowed with the gift of ubiquity. Not a day passed that she did not come to me with a long account of the places she had visited, and of those she meant to visit; of the hopes she had been disappointed of in one quarter, and of the expectations she entertained in another; of her glimpses here and of her surmises there. So often did she drag me after her through every street and lane of Smyrna, that my friends pretended to think that she had herself stepped into Euphrosyne's place, and when the city had been ransacked through to the last garret and cellar, we extended our search to every village and hamlet within ten or fifteen miles round.

When at last I had explored every district within the Mootsellimlik of Ismir, until I no longer could think of any place unsearched, and found nothing left to do, but to sit down in contented ignorance, or rather in calm despair, there flew in at my open window, one evening, a small silken bag, flung by an invisible hand, and conveying a gold ring. It was one which I had put on Euphrosyne's finger, immediately after the memorable farewell visit of her kind-hearted friends, and ere I called upon my companions to claim my bets.

On the slip of paper twisted round the ring appeared the following words; Cease a pursuit, as vain as it is thankless; nor seek any longer to disturb the peace of Euphrosyne, now cured of a worthless passion; now at rest from her grief in more merciful hands. ring you once gave her in proof of your love, reverts to you in sign that she never more can accept your tardy, your unavailing tenderness.'

The

These words, evidently written by the same hand which had originally pointed Euphrosyne out to me as a desirable conquest, seemed at last fully to explain her motives for leaving me, or at least her conduct since her disappearance. Nothing could be clearer in my opinion, than that the artful schemer who had first instigated me to seduce the lovely girl, had availed himself of my forced absence from home, to take her off my hands. I had been a mere tool to some more designing member of our nefarious brotherhood.

It might, however, in one sense, be called considerate, thus at last to relieve me from all further anxiety and trouble; and nothing but the inherent perverseness of human nature could have changed as it did, the cold indifference with which I had treated my mistress while she depended wholly upon my affection, into the warmth which her image rekindled in my heart, the moment I supposed her comforted by another: but this new ardour, conceived too late, I kept to myself; and judging that individual now preferred to be---though unknown-frequently in my company, I took uncommon pains to evince by my mirth my gratitude for his proceedings. Lest he should have any doubt on this subject, not a day passed without my joining some festive party in excursions to Boornabad, to Sedi-keni, and other places; and by these means I recovered at last in reality the lightness of heart which I affected and that to such a degree, as almost to grow frightened at my own unusual hilarity, and to apprehend it might forbode some new impending sorrow.

An excursion had often been projected, and as often put off, to a village a few miles from Smyrna, celebrated for the beauty of its situation. At last the party took place.

;

We were sitting, half a dozen thoughtless souls, under the cool shade of a locust tree. I had taken up a lyre, laid down by one of my companions, and was just going to try my long-neglected skill in a Greek ballad which I used to sing to Helena, when a peasant brought me a note of a suspicious appearance.

Determined this time to know the author of this single-handed correspondence, I began by laying hold of its conveyer. The messenger seemed the quintessence of stupidity; my catechising could draw nothing from him, except that the billet had been committed to his care three miles off by a female hidden in her veil, come from a distance, and who immediately again took herself off. All that the bearer could, or would say ending there, I turned me to the epistle.

It ran thus:

'Did ever you hear of a Greek merchant whose name was Sozimato; once he excelled Chrysopulo himself, in riches, in ambition, and in sway; his fortune turned fickle. Chrysopulo saw new thousands press upon his former thousands, and Sozimato ended a bankrupt

the match contracted between Chrysopulo's son and Sozimato's daughter now was cancelled; for be tween the rich and the poor no engagement could subsist. To sharpen the sting of the insult, the humble

daughter of the bankrupt was offered a servant's place in Chrysopulo's family: for the upstarts exulted in treading on the neck of the fallen! The offer of arrogance was, however, accepted, and the taunts of insolence were born without a complaint. A disease, for which there was no cure, carried off Chrysopulo's infant son; and Euphrosyne-a distant relation-became the adopted daughter. She too was rendered the victim of just revenge. A set of lawless young men had established a society, for the purpose of ruining the peace of sober families. One member of this noble fraternity was spoken in the town as more bold and unprincipled than the rest: he was singled out to cast dishonour on Chrysopulo's house, and to sow misery among its members; and at least, through his instru mentality for he was but a tool that Euphrosyne, most injustly aspersed in her unsullied virtue, became the kept-mistress of a needy adventurer. Foul disgrace, conjured up from all quarters, thus cast its cloud over Chrysopulo's name !:

'Here the work of vengeance might have ended, had not the adventurer too dared to treat with indignity the daughter of Sozimato. It was for this she joined in the search after his departed mistress? it was for this she permitted not the unfortunate girl to be found; it was for this she prevented her from being solaced by her lover's returning tenderness, even when she lay destitute in a miserable garret, at the last period of her long protracted labour, and it was for this, finally, that she prepared the infidel wretch a world of endless pangs, by plying his hapless mistress with false accounts of his unrelenting barbarity, unto the last day of her hapless existence !

:

'Great, no doubt, were the difficulties in preventing a meeting between the repentant sinner and his innocent victim. One day he penetrated into the very abode where she lay, writhing under every agony of body and mind. A ragged curtain alone kept her from his sight, and a single ery unstifled must have thrown him in her arms! Watehfulness, however, triumphed the adventurer turned back in ignorance; and his Euphrosyne saw him no more. She was delivered, unaided by any one but the person who had served, had sold her, and now was labouring that she might be sainted. Yet did the angel on earth try to do what she could for her adored Selim's child. Seeing it ready to perish for want of sustenance, she resolved to save her infant's life by completing her own shame. Ere, however, the sacrifice could be accomplished, she expired, expired among strangers, pronouncing Selim's name ! The more merciful hands in which this miserable man read that his mistress was at rest, were those of her Maker; the ring he received had been taken from her corpse already cold; and the sole worker of all this wo, I scarcely need add, was the injured and now satisfied Sophia.'

I do not know how I was able to finish the perusal of this letter, except from a sort of stupor, which for a moment kept all my faculties, save that of mere perception, suspended. The first word, however, which one of our party utterrd, broke the fascination, set loose my entranced senses, and with them all the demons of hell which had been gathering all the while in my bosom. What species of violence I committed in breaking away from the convivial scene to pursue the detestable Sophia, is wholly beyond my

knowledge. I neither saw, nor heard, nor thought until I reached Smyrna.

Ere

Sophia knew me too well to wait my return. I received her note, she had left that place for ever: nor could I trace her flight. It was only some time after, when, hopeless of discovering her abode, I had committed to heaven the care of her punishment, that in the least likely of places I met the embodied fury. She again tried to avoid me-again commenced the race of conscious guilt; but this time to no purpose. Her crime was one which, more atrocious than many which justice never spares, yet mock its shackled arm. I therefore took into my own hands a punishment too long delayed; nor was it the more lenient from that circumstance.

This unlooked-for event seemed to afford me some refreshment. For a while I felt the thirst of my soul assuaged, the raging fever of my blood somewhat allayed; but the cessation of pain was only transient. The image of Euphrosyne expiring on a bed of wretchedness, and in the belief that I was hailing the hour of her departure at the very time when I would have given my own life to have found the poor sufferer-when I only prayed to Heaven for leave to take her back, to cherish her in my now softened bosom, and to make her taste at last, ere yet too late, of happiness -soon began to haunt me incessantly; and too truly I found that the fury Sophia had insinuated into my heart a canker, which I was destined to carry to the grave." Hope's "Anastatius.”

JACINTHA.

THE maiden's brow was high and fair,
But sorrow, like a cloud, was there;
A settled sadness darkly fraught
With all the bitterness of thought-
Thoughts of a time, now past and o'er,
But living in the spirit's core,-
A time of passion, spent and dead,
Of false love, worn and withered!
Alas! that feelings heaven descended,
Should be with bitter error blended ;-
And yet, enough to look upon
This waning of the spirit's sun;
Enough to see this fair young brow
Clothed in the garb of mental woe;
To feel that here the heart had dared
Its all, and lost the stake--- had shared
Its tenderness with one too dear...
Had been deceived---and withered here!

The after-thoughts of solitude...
Oh! why should self-reproach intrude
On the sweet waking dreams which fly
Across the heart's warm memory?
Or, who is there would seek to seize
Remembrance in such thoughts as these!
Remembrance which must ever bring
Its sighs, its sorrows, and its sting---
Making the object of the thought,
Which might have been with gladness fraught,
Something remembered but with pain ;

A cloud upon life's sunny way,

A stain on youth's resplendant day,

Never to be effaced again!

Oh! woman's heart should be a thing
Made but for one fond worshipping!
An altar raised to one alone,
One, only one, and all his own:
And not a look, a tone, a prayer,
Save his should be recorded there.
What then the pleasure to attend
At such an altar, and to bend,

Where prayer, and vow, and look, and sigh,
Alike must pass unheeded by ;
And were all homage must incline,
Save one, but to pollute the shrine!

Jacintha, it was thine to know
The bitterness of unbless'd vow-
Thine to be scorn'd even in thy youth-
Love's bliss outworn to bear its ruth,
Alas! that grief should ever cling
To love, which is so sweet a thing;
That beauty should be marred by care,
That hope should fade beneath despair,
That passion should e'er prompt to ill,
And woman be its victim still!---
Jacintha, thou wert fair and young,
The bless'd and praised of every tongue:
The child of promise, heir of bliss-
And could it yield no fate but this?
Oh! woman's heart should ever hold
Its purity, like untold gold!

Beauty's best charm! with which she sways
Affection's complicated maze:-
Thus may she be for ever dear,
Nor feel the woe I look on here.

IMPORTANCE OF HEAT.

In the winter of climates where the temperature is for a time below the freezing point of water, the earth, with its waters, is bound up in snow and ice, the trees and shrubs are leafless, appearing every where like withered skeletons, owing either to the bitter cold or the deficiency of food, are perishing in the snowsnature seems dying or dead! but what a change when spring returns, that is, when heat returns! The earth is again uncovered and soft, and rivers flow, the lakes are again liquid mirrors, the warm showers come to foster vegetation, which soon cover the ground with beauty and plenty. Man, lately inactive, is recalled. to many duties; his water-wheels are every where at work, his boats are again on the canals and streams, his busy fleets of industry are along the shores-winged life in new multitudes fills the sky, finny life similarly fills the waters, and on every spot of earth teems vitality and joy. Many persons regard these changes of season as if they came like the successive positions of a turning wheel, of which one necessarily brings the next; not adverting to the fact that it is the single circumstance of change of temperature which does all. But if the colds of winter arrive too early, they unfailingly produce the wintry scene and if warmth come before its time in spring, it expands the bud and the blossom, which a return of frost will surely destroy. A seed sown in an ice-house never awakens to life. Again, as regards climates, the earthy matters forming the exterior of our globe, and therefore entering into the composition of soils, are not different for different latitudes, at the equator for instance and near the poles. That the aspect of nature, then, in the two situations exhibits a contrast more striking still than between summer and winter, is owing merely to an inequality of temperature which is permanent. Were it not for this, in both situations the same vegetables might grow and the same animals might find their befitting support. But now, in the one, namely, where heat abounds, we see the magnificient scene of tropical fertility; the earth covered with luxuriant vegetation in endless lovely variety, and even the hard rocks festooned with green, perhaps with the vine, rich in its

purple clusters.

In the midst of this scene, animal existence is equally abundant, aud many of the species are of surpassing beauty---the plumage of the birds is as brilliant as the gayest flowers. The warm air is perfumed from the spice-beds, the sky and clouds are often dyed in tints as bright as freshest rainbow, and happy human inhabitants call the scene a paradise. Again, where heat is absent, we have the dreary spectacle of polar barrenness, namely, bare rock or mountain, instead of fertile field; water every where hardened to solidity, no rain, nor cloud, nor dew, few motions but drifting snow: vegetable life scarcely existing, and then only in sheltered places turned to the sun-and instead of the palms and other trees of India, whose single leaf is almost broad enough to cover a hut, they are bushes and trees, as the furze and fir, having what may be called hairs or bristles in the room of leaves. In the winter time, during which the sun is not seen, for nearly six months, new horrors are added; viz. the darkness and dreadful silence, the cold benumbing all life, and even freezing mercury-a scene into which man may penetrate from happier climes, but where he can only leave his protecting ship and fires for short periods, as he might issue from a diving bell, at the bottom of the ocean. That in these now desolate regions, heat only is wanted to make them like the most favoured countries of the earth, is proved by the recent discoveries under ground of the remnants of animals and vegetables formerly inhabiting them, which now can live only near the equator. While winter, then, or the temporary absence of heat, may be called the sleep of nature, the more permanent torpor about the poles appears like its death; and when we further reflect that heat is the great agent in numberless important processes of chymistry and domestic economy, and is the actuating principle of the mighty steam-engine which now performs half the work of Society, how truly may heat, the subject of our present chapter, be considered as the life and soul of the universe !---Arnott's Elements of Physics.

SONG.

Он, ask me not to tell thee now
If I believe thee fond and true,
If languid look or ardent vow

My youthful bosom could subdue;
Whate'er I think-whate'er I feel-.-
Within its ore the secret lies,
And if thou would'st the same reveal
Go trace it in my truant eyes.

The tongue may playfully confess

The beating bosom's joy or care,

But cannot faithfully express

The secret thoughts that linger there; The love that dwells in doubts and fears As warm and pure we often prize, Ab, sure such trembling love appears To read no language but the eyes.

THE MISERS OF ANTWERP.

The story and fate of two misers of Antwerp are now nearly forgotten; a tradition rather than a true history. Even the celebrated picture which represents these

men tells no more of their story than a sign-post does respecting the country it designs; but like this, it is a good starting-post. From curiosity respecting this picture, I have been enabled to make out the following particulars of their lives and subsequent fate. If less appalling than the wholesale butcheries of modern times, it was considered a tale of fearful interest,

It was in a narrow street turning out of the Rue de la Mer, that a house had remained untenanted for many years, from a reputation it had very generally acquired of being haunted, Ill-fame had done its worst upon the building, and had exorcised all good and cheerful spirits from the dwelling; its many stories of broken windows, with their high gable ends, alone attesting it had once been of some importance. About the period of the commencement of our story, it again received inmates, but of a nature perfectly suited to its present gloomy appearance. Two old men were allowed to occupy an unfurnished apartment and its adjoining closet. Some compassionate neighbours bestowed a straw mattress and a little covering, pitying, perhaps, the ill-sorted union of old age and beggary; this, together with a small stove, a saucepan, a lamp, two chairs, soon despoiled of their backs to convert into fuel, a deal table, a large wooden trunk, and a small iron chest, where all these new comers added for the comfort of their home,

The habits of these men. abiding in a house supposed to be haunted, strangers too in the good town of Antwerp, occasioned for a while much curious remark and observation; but even the active principle of curiosity will die of inanition, and their unvarying daily history at length silenced and baffled suspicion. In the course of time the very oddity that had occasioned remark seemed natural and appropriate. It was not known by what train of circumstances, and their corresponding action on the mind, these two brothersfor such was the legal as well as characteristic relation ship between them-had adopted the gentlemanly vice of avarice: or if from early youth it had been their natural tendency, moulded into character by the thousand accidents that fashion men's minds. In the town of Antwerp they were never otherwise known than as men of penurious habits, about whom there hung some mystery of wealth,

However this might be one brother alternately remained at home, whilst the other bent his way to the bridge that used to cross the Rue de la Mer when a canal ran through it on this bridge to post himself indifferently in the summer, or more inclement seasons, to ask alms from every decent passenger, plying a thankless trade from break of day until the waters reflected dimly the decaying light.

The appearance of these two misers,-though wretched in the extreme, half clothed and fed, the hungy look of their tribe upon them, the compressed and indrawn life, the clutching grasp of the long, lean, withered hand closing on every cent with all the strengh left in the attenuated body,-had nevertheless in it an air of decayed gentility, which, despite the offensive whine of mendicity, induced most passengers to drop a little solid charity into the eager palm of either beggar-1 say their appearance, for in gaunt faminestruck form, in features, voice, even in the pace of person, one could not be identified apart from the other, save after close and minute observation.