placed in a remote corner, and made it there; | down to his own position, and the second and insisted on bringing it to the Miss awakening was harder than the first. When Wodehouses with her own hands. She was disturbed; her sweet composure was gone. Vincent sat and watched her under the shade of his hands, with feelings as miserable as ever moved man. It was not sorrow for having disturbed her;-feelings much more personal, mortification and disappointment, and, above all, jealousy, raged in his heart. Warmer and stronger than ever was his interest in Mr. Fordham now. After a miserable interval, he rose to take his leave. When he came up to her, Lady Western's kind heart once more awoke in his behalf. She drew him aside after a momentary struggle with herself. "I know that gentleman," she said, quickly, with a momentary flush of color, and shortening of breath; "at least I knew him once; and the address you mention is my brother's address. If you will tell me what you want to know, I will ask for you. My brother and he used not to be friends, but I suppose What did you want to know?" "Only," said Vincent, with involuntary bitterness, "if he was a man of honor, and could be trusted; nothing else." The young Dowager paused and sighed; her beautiful eyes softened with tears. "Oh, yes-yes; with life-to death!" she said, with a low accompaniment of sighing, and a wistful, melancholy smile upon her lovely face. Vincent hastened out of the house. He ventured to say nothing to himself as he went up Grange Lane in the starless night, with all the silence and swiftness of passion. He dared not trust himself to think. His very heart, the physical organ itself, seemed throbbing and bursting with conscious pain. Had she loved this mysterious stranger whose undecipherable shadow hung over the minister's path? To Vincent's fancy, nothing else could account for her agitation; and was he so true, and to be trusted? Poor gentle Susan, whom such a fate and doom was approaching as might have softened her brother's heart, had but little place in his thoughts. He was not glad of that favorable verdict. He was overpowered with jealous rage and passion. Alas, for his dreams! Once more, what downfall and overthrow had come of it! once more he had come he got home, and found his mother, affectionately proud, waiting to hear all about the great lady he had been visiting, it is impossible to express in words the intolerable impatience and disgust with himself and his fate which overpowered the young man. He had a bad headache, Mrs. Vincent said, she was sure, and he did not contradict her. It was an unspeakable relief to him when she went to her own room, and delivered him from the tender scrutiny of her eyes-those eyes full of nothing but love, which, in the irritation of his spirit, drove him desperate. He did not tell her about the unexpected discovery he had made. The very name of Fordham would have choked him that night. CHAPTER XIV. THE next morning brought no letters except from Susan. Fordham, if so true as Lady Western called him, was not, Vincent thought with bitterness, acting as an honorable man should in this emergency. But perhaps he might come to Carlingford in the course of the day, to see Susan's brother. The aspect of the young minister was changed when he made his appearance at the breakfast-table. Mrs. Vincent made the most alarmed inquiries about his health, but stopped abruptly in making them by his short and ungracious answer-came to a dead pause; and with a pang of fright and mortification, acknowledged to herself that her son was no longer her boy, whose entire heart she knew, but a man with a life and concerns of his own, possibly not patent to his mother. That breakfast was not a cheerful meal. There had been a long silence, broken only by those anxious attentions to each other's personal comfort, with which people endeavor to smooth down the embarrassment of an intercourse apparently confidential, into which some sudden unexplainable shadow has fallen. At last Vincent got up from the table, with a little outbreak of impatience. "I can't eat this morning; don't ask me. Mother, get your bonnet on," said the young man; "we must go to see Mrs. Hilyard today." "Yes, Arthur," said Mrs. Vincent meekly; she had determined not to see Mrs. Hilyard, of whom her gentle respectability was sus picious; but, startled by her son's looks, and by the evident arrival of that period, instinctively perceived by most women, at which a man snatches the reins out of his adviser's hand, and has his way, the alarmed and anxious mother let her arms fall, and gave in without a struggle. "The fact is, I heard of Mr. Fordham last night," said Vincent, walking about the room, lifting up and setting down again abstractedly the things on the table. Lady Western knows him, it appears; perhaps Mrs. Hilyard does too." 66 "Lady Western knows him? O Arthur, tell me what did she say?" cried his mother, clasping her hands. "She said he could be trusted-with life -to death," said Vincent, very low, with an inaudible groan in his heart. He was prepared for the joy and the tears, and the thanksgiving with which his words were received; but he could not have believed how sharply his mother's exclamation, "God bless my Susan! now I am happy about her, Arthur. I could be content to die," would go to his heart. Susan, yes !-it was right to be happy about her; and as for himself, who cared? He shut up his heart in that bitterness; but it filled him with an irritation and restlessness which he could not subdue. "We must go to Mrs. Hilyard; probably she can tell us more," he said abruptly; "and there is her child to speak of. I blame myself," he added, with impatience, "for not telling her before. Let us go now directly-never mind ringing the bell; all that can be done when we are out. Dinner? oh, for Heaven's sake, let them manage that! Where is your bonnet, mother? the air will do me good after a bad night." point in Carlingford to the minister's mother. Before she had half prepared herself for this interview, he had hurried her up the narrow bare staircase which led to Mrs. Hilyard's lodgings. On the landing, with the door half open, stood Lady Western's big footman, fully occupying the narrow standing-ground, and shedding a radiance of plush over the whole shabby house. The result upon Mrs. Vincent was an immediate increase of comfort, for surely the woman must be respectable to whom people sent messages by so grand a functionary. The sight of the man struck Vincent like another pang. She had sent to take counsel, no doubt, on the evidently unlooked-for information which had startled her so last night. "Come in," said the inhabitant of the room. She was folding a note for which the footman waited. Things were just as usual in that shabby place. The coarse stuff at which she had been working lay on the table beside her. Seeing a woman with Vincent, she got up quickly, and turned her keen eyes upon the new-comer. The timid doubtful mother, the young man, somewhat arbitrary and self-willed, who had brought his companion there against her will, the very look, half fright, half suspicion, which Mrs. Vincent threw round the room, explained matters to the quick observer before her. She was mistress of the position at once. "Take this to Lady Western, John," said Mrs. Hilyard. "She may come when she pleases-I shall be at home all day; but tell her to send a maid next time, for you are much too magnificent for Back Grove Street. This is Mrs. Vincent, I know. Your son has brought you to see me, and I hope you have not come to say that I was too rash in asking a Christian kindness from this young "Yes, dear," said Mrs. Vincent, moved man's mother. If he had not behaved like by this last argument. It must be his head-a paladin, I should not have ventured upon ache, no doubt, she tried to persuade her- it; but when a young man conducts himself self. Stimulated by the sound of his foot- so, I think his mother is a good woman. step in the next room, she lost very little You have taken in my child ? " time over her toilette. Perhaps the chill January air, sharp with frost, air full of natural exhilaration and refreshment, did bring a certain relief to the young Nonconformist's aching temples and exasperated temper. It was with difficulty his mother kept time with his long strides, as he hurried her along the street, not leaving her time to look at Salem, which was naturally the most interesting She had taken Mrs. Vincent by both hands, and placed her in a chair, and sat down beside her. The widow had not a word to say. What with the praise of her son, which was music to her ears-what with the confusion of her own position, she was painfully embarrassed and at a loss, and anxiously full of explanations. "Susan has, I have no doubt; but I am sorry I left home on but Ar "Oh, I am sure it-it is not necessary," said Mrs. Vincent, half alarmed, thur, you were to ask Wednesday morning, and we did not know | Mr. Vincent, you will leave us together then they were expected; but we have a while I explain my circumstances to your spare room, and Susan, I don't doubt" mother?" "The fact is, my mother had left home before they could have reached Lonsdale," interposed Vincent; "but my sister would take care of them equally well. They are all safe. A note came this morning announcing their arrival. My mother," said the young man hastily, "returns almost immediately. It will make no difference to the strangers." "What were you to ask ?" said Mrs. Hilyard, laying her hand with an involuntary movement upon a tiny note lying open on the table, to which Vincent's eyes had already wandered. "The fact is," he said, following her hand with his eyes, "that my mother came up to inquire about some one called Fordham, in whom she is interested. Lady Western knows him," said Vincent, abruptly, looking in Mrs. Hilyard's face. 66 "I am sure Susan will make them comfortable, and the beds would be well aired," said Mrs. Vincent; "but I had sudden occasion to leave home, and did not even know of it till the night before. My dear," she said, with hesitation, "did you think Mrs. Lady Western knows him. You perHilyard would know? I brought Susan's ceive that she has written to ask me about note to show you," she added, laying down him this morning. Yes," said Mrs. Hilyard, that simple performance in which Susan an-looking at the young man, not without a nounced the receipt of Arthur's letter, and shade of compassion. "You are quite right the subsequent arrival of "a governess-lady, in your conclusions; poor Alice and he were and the most beautiful girl that ever was in love with each other before she married seen." The latter part of Susan's hurried Sir John. He has not been heard of for a note, in which she declared this beautiful long time. What do you want to know, and girl to be "very odd-a sort of grown-up how is it he has showed himself now?" baby," was carefully abstracted by the prudent mother. "It is for Susan's sake," cried Mrs. Vincent interposing. "O Mrs. Hilyard, you will feel for me better than any one-my only daughter! I got an anonymous letter the night before I left. I am so flurried I almost forget what night it was-Tuesday The strange woman before them took up the note in both her hands and drank it in, with an almost trembling eagerness. She seemed to read over the words to herself again and again with moving lips. Then night—which arrived when my dear child she drew a long breath of relief. was out. I never kept anything from her in "We and how we got through that night—” "Miss Smith is the model of a governess-all her life, and to conceal it was dreadful— lady," she said, turning with a composure wonderfully unlike that eagerness of anxiety to Mrs. Vincent again-" She never writes but on her day, whatever may happen; and yesterday did not happen to be her day. Thank you, it is Christian charity. You must not be any loser mean time, and we Mrs. Hilyard took up her work, and must arrange these matters before you go pinned the long coarse seam to her knee. away. This is not a very imposing habita-"Mrs. Vincent will tell me herself," she tion," she said, glancing round with a move- said, looking straight at him with her ment of her thin mouth, and comic gleam amused look. Of all her strange peculiariin her eye-" but that makes no difference, ties, this faculty of amusement was the so far as they are concerned. Mr. Vincent knows more about me than he has any right to know," continued the strange woman, turning her head towards him for the moment, with an amused glance-" a man takes one on trust sometimes, but a woman must always explain herself to a woman: perhaps, strangest. Intense restrained passion, anxiety of the most desperate kind, a wild will which would pause at nothing, all blended with and left room for this unfailing perception of any ludicrous possibility. Vincent got up hastily, and, going to the window, looked out upon the dismal prospect of Sa "No; he never could find her-it did not turn out to be our Lonsdale, I think-what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Vincent; "you both know something I don't what has happened? Arthur, have I said anything dreadful ?—Oh, what does it mean?" "Describe him if you can,” said Mrs. Hil lem, throwing its shabby shadow upon those | yet what that meaning might be; but his dreary graves. Instinctively he looked for pulses leapt with a prescient thrill of some the spot where that conversation must have tempest or earthquake about to fall. been held which he had overheard from the vestry window; it came most strongly to his mind at that moment. As his mother went through her story, how Mr. Fordham had come accidentally to the house-how gradually they had admitted him to their friendship-how, at last, Susan and he had been engaged her son stood at the window, fol-yard, in a tone which, sharp and calm, tinlowing in his mind all the events of that gled through the room with a passionate evening, which looked so long ago, yet was clearness which nothing but extreme exciteonly two or three evenings back. He re- ment could give. She had taken Mrs. Vincalled to himself his rush to the telegraph cent's hand, and held it tightly with a certain office; and again, with a sharp stir of oppo- compassionate compulsion, forcing her to sition and enmity, recalled, clear as a pic-speak. As for Vincent, the horrible suspiture, the railway-carriage just starting, the cion which stole upon him unmanned him flash of light inside, the face so clearly evi- utterly. He had sprung to his feet, and dent against the vacant cushions. What had he to do with that face, with its eagle outline and scanty long locks? Somehow, in the meshes of fate he felt himself so involved that it was impossible to forget this man. He came and took his seat again with his mind full of that recollection. The story had come to a pause, and Mrs. Hilyard sat silent, taking in with her keen eyes every particular of the gentle widow's character, evidently, as Vincent could see, following her conduct back to those springs of gentle, but imprudent, generosity and confidence in what people said to her, from which her present difficulties sprang. "And you admitted him first ?" said Mrs. Hilyard, interrogatively, "because- -?" She paused. Mrs. Vincent became embarrassed and nervous. stood with his eyes fixed on his mother's face, with an indescribable horror and suspense. It was not her he saw. With hot eyes that blazed in their sockets, he was fixing the gaze of desperation upon a picture in his mind, which he felt but too certain would correspond with the faltering words which fell from her lips. Mrs. Vincent herself would have thrown herself wildly upon him, and lost her head altogether in a frightened attempt to find out what this sudden commotion meant, had she not been fixed and supported by that strong yet gentle grasp upon her hand. "Describe him - take time," said her strange companion again— not looking at her, but waiting in an indescribable calm of passion for the words which she could frame in her mind before they were said. "It was very foolish, very foolish," said "Tall,” said the widow's faltering, alarmed the widow, wringing her hands; "but he voice, falling with a strange uncertainty came to make inquiries, you know. I an- through the intense stillness, in single words, swered him civilly the first time, and he came with gasps between; "not-a very young again and again. It looked so natural. He man-aquiline-with a sort of eagle-lookhad come down to see a young relation at light hair-long and thin, and as fine as silk school in the neighborhood." Mrs. Hilyard uttered a sudden exclamation-very slight, low, scarcely audible; but it attracted Vincent's attention. He could see that her thin lips were closed, her figure slightly erected, a sudden keen gleam of interest in her face. "Did he find his relation ?" she asked, in a voice so ringing and distinct, that the young minister started, and sat upright, bracing himself for something about to happen. It did not flash upon him -very light in his beard, so that it scarcely showed. Oh, God help us! what is it?what is it ?-You both know whom I mean.” Neither of them spoke; but the eyes of the two met in a single look, from which both withdrew, as if the communication were a crime. With a shudder Vincent approached his mother; and, speechless though he was, took hold of her, and drew her to him abruptly. Was it murder he read in those eyes, with their desperate concentration of will and power? The sight of them, and and so will I-we are companions in misforrecollection of their dreadful splendor, drove tune. And you are a priest, why cannot you even Susan out of his mind. Susan, poor curse him?" she exclaimed, with a bitter gentle soul!—what if she broke her tender cry. The next moment she had taken down heart in which no devils lurked? "Mother, a travelling-bag from a shelf, and kneeling come-come," he said, hoarsely, raising her down by a trunk, began to transfer some up in his arms, and releasing the hand which things to it. Vincent left his mother, and the extraordinary woman beside her still went up to her with a sudden impulse, "I clasped fast. The movement roused Mrs. am a priest, let me bless you," said the young Hilyard as well as Mrs. Vincent. She rose man, touching with a compassionate hand up promptly from the side of the visitor who the dark head bending before him. Then had brought her such news. he took his mother away. He could not speak as he supported her down-stairs; she, clinging to him with double weakness, could scarcely support herself at all in her agitation and wonder when they got into the street. She kept looking in his face with a pitiful appeal that went to his heart. 66 "I need not suggest to you that this must be acted on at once," she said, to Vincent, who, in his agitation, saw how the hand, with which she leant on the table, clenched hard till it grew white with the pressure. "The man we have to deal with spares nothing." She stopped, and then, with an effort, Tell me, Arthur, tell me!" She sobbed went up to the half-fainting mother, who it out unawares, and over and over before hung upon Vincent's arm, and took her hands he knew what she was saying. And what and pressed them close. "We have both could he tell her? "We must go to Susan thrust our children in the lion's mouth," she-poor Susan!" was all the young man could cried, with a momentary softening. "Go, say. poor woman, and save your child if you can, loves you and prays for you. Soon, very soon, the lion of the tribe of Judah will appear and dwell among men and be their King; and acts of benevolence will be the only test of our discipleship of Christ (Matt. 25: 35-40). Joseph Wolff, LL.D., D.D., Vicar of Ilc-Brewers, near Taunton, in Somersetshire, domestic chaplain to the Marquis of Londonderry and the Earl of Beverly, and Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Levi!-Written at Ile-Brewers, near Taunton, in Somerset. Feb., 1862. THE REV. Dr. Wolff has issued the following | and I have not given up the hope of seeing at characteristic address: " My dear Friends, Ile-Brewers the erection of a college like that My attempt at raising funds for the rebuilding established in the city of Rome. Spirits of St. of the Chichester Cathedral, by selling my au- Francis Xavier, of Vincent de Paul, and Howtograph-God's holy name be praised!-con-ard, hover over me! And you, Greek, be it tinues to prosper, for I receive frequently de-known to you that Joseph Wolff, the Jew, mands from friends all over England for my autograph, which I sell for 2s. 6d. each. My church at Ile-Brewers has also been consecrated. I have received for it nearly £1,500, but I owe still nearly £100 for the entire liquidation of the debt. Members of the Church of England! would you deny your further contributions towards liquidating this debt to your old household friend, Joseph Wolff, who has now built at Ile-Brewers, near Taunton, in Somersetshire, a parsonage, a schoolhouse, and a church, and who has attempted the liberation of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly, and who now, besides performing his own parochial duties in his own village, for which he only gets £180 Ox Tuesday last appeared the first number per annum, provides his parishioners with coals of a work which must prove as acceptable to and blankets, and preaches and lectures all over the antiquary as useful to the artist" IconoEngland for every charitable institution existing graphie méthodique du Costume du quatrième in England, and whom you might have heard au dix-neuvième siècle (315-1815)”—a colleclecturing to two hundred lunatics in the Sussex tion engraved à l'eau-forte, from authentic and County Asylum, and whom you will, if God unpublished documents, by Raphael Jacquemin. please, hear preach near the Crystal Palace at There will be about one hundred parts, each the time the Exhibition will commence. Joseph containing four plates, printed in bistre by Wolff, the Israelite, of the seed of Abraham M. Delatre. A number will appear once a and the tribe of Levi, does not now labor for month; any number may be purchased sepathe evangelization of the Jews, but for the Jew,rately, and when the work is completed there Greek, and Armenian, and most of all for will be a general introduction, giving the monChristians of his adopted country-England, ography of the figures and also an index to the dear England-which I love with all its faults; plates.-Critic, 5 April. |