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Jenkin groaned, and fastened a look of extreme lute eye; presently a singular change came over pity upon his master. Then a door opened, and his features. An expression of gentleness, wonJoan Gregory entered. Her cheeks were blood-derful in such a countenance, was plainly to be seen less and her lips compressed. In spite of her noble upon them. The old man almost sobbed. person, and the extraordinary beauty of her mel- "Jenkin, give the boy the chair." There was ancholy face, there was something in the firmer but one in the room, and whilst Lewis Gregory was moods of this high-spirited girl, to excite fear rath-led to this, his father rambled about from windows er than love.

"Father," she said abruptly, "Lewis has come, and the time for action has come. He and his dear family-his wife and the little ones, your grandchildren, will be cast upon the world if you do not aid him. Father, break this miserable spell that destroys you--that destroys us all--and save him." "The old cry--the old cry," said the miser. "I am to pay money because Lewis is a fool." And he tightened his grasp of the frayed skirt of his threadbare coat, which he had fidgetted into his bands, as if, in tightening the grasp, he held his money safe.

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to doors, and from doors to windows, turning his eyes always away from him.

"Father," said the blind man.

"Not now-not now," said the miser.

In a few minutes he came to his son's side and took his hands into his own.

"Father," said Lewis Gregory, "this is a sad meeting, after so many years of separation. Your hands are thin with age, but they have more labor in them than mine. I am blind-utterly blind." And he turned his sightless eyes up to his father's face.

The old man, with the singular gentleness becoming more and more distinct upon his countenance, made no reply, but continued to hold his son's hands.

"Joan has spoken to you of my condition," said Lewis Gregory. "And, indeed, it has come to this extreme point, that unless you aid me, my wife and children will be beggars. I cannot bring my stubborn spirit to entreat you; God forgive my human pride; aid me, or deny me; the work, for safety, or for hopeless ruin, must be your own.”

Here there was an interruption. A blue-eyed urchin, a noble looking little fellow, dashed a door open, which the recent entrances had left ajar, and entered the room. As he did so, a light step har

"What can I do?" said the old man querulously. "What can you do? I will tell you father, not only what you can do to save Lewis, but what you can do to gain happiness for yourself. Throw open your doors-cultivate your lands-live like a gentleman, the descendant of gentlemen-fill this desolate old house with the merry noises of children-ried after him, and Anne Gregory became visible your grandchildren. The wealth which you love will be trebled after every charge upon your love and duty as a parent. Is not this so?"

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man.

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Money ventured, money lost," muttered the old

Well, suppose it were lost," said Joan Gregory, with tears rising to fill her eyes, "suppose that the aid to Lewis were but the casting of your riches into a gulf; if you save him by the sacrifice, do you not achieve the one thing for which wealth is alone to be greatly desired? You raise up the fallen, you make the unhappy happy. Father how will you sleep when this day has passed, and you have sealed the fate of Lewis and his little children ?"

at the door. We have not before seen her by daylight, and she is well worth looking at. She has a very young fresh face-too pale just now-large innocent eyes, and waving hair of so light and glossy a brown that you can scarcely distinguish its colour for its glitter. Her figure is lithe, bat womanly and perfect. She is scarcely eighteenfour or five years younger than her taller, equally beautiful perhaps, but sadder sister. Her pursuit of the child ended at the door, in which she stood undecided, looking from one to another. Joan did not seem to regard her as an available ally, notwithstanding the old man's love for this youngest and most cherished of his children. In fact, the resolute sister undervalued the soft and habitually The miser trembled. Dreams are the whips yielding one, and misinterpreted a child-like gayety which scar the hearts of such men. Without farther and simplicity into feebleness-a mistake very words, Joan Gregory left the room. In a few mo- often made. "Anne might do much," Joan had ments she returned, leading Lewis, the blind man, mused, in preparing for the interview with her fsgently by the hand. He came with the step of ther, "if she used her influence; but she has no doubt which marks the blind; but his colourless face, firmness, and would only weep like a child." And dim for want of the bright fires of the eye, was perhaps Anne would have done so, for she had yet very tranquil; a calm majesty ennobled the never learned under the dominating vigor of her appearance of this unfortunate man. The miser sister, to use the strength of her own nature. As looked upon his son at first with a sharp and reso- she stood in the door-way, she caught a signal from

Joan and slowly retired, leaving the child whom | dove was showing the talons of the falcon. The she had pursued. old man became a picture of terror.

The boy advanced towards the group in the centre of the room, saying, “Aunt Joan, I don't like this house."

Joan took him into her arms. "This, father, is little Miles, your namesake," she said. "Look well at the beautiful boy, who, so soon, will want bread." There was a great deal of bitterness in the girl's tone as she said this; and she looked almost haughtily at her father.

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Joan," said Lewis Gregory, "this is dreadful. You carry your love for me too far. Lead me away; and then subdue your feelings. Be gentle, as you have always been, to our poor father." "As surely as I live, and wish to die"-Joan Gregory answered, “I will take this money. If I

"The child will never want bread," answered the old man ;" we must see to that-we must see to that. A very little is enough for reasonable wants. Eh! Jenkin? Take the child away." "Father," said Joan Gregory, who still retain-am dragged away to prison for the deed, I will de

ed her little nephew, his pretty head with its light curls pressed against the oval of her proud, earnest face, "father, I hoped just now that you were relenting. You were moved, I saw, by looking again upon your son, whom you cast off long years ago. But the gentle look has left your face. You "God help us," groaned Lewis Gregory. "Sorhave shrunk back. You will do nothing. Now rows crowd upon us. Joan, your mind wanders." father listen to me. You must aid your son, my "Wanders?" replied the excited girl, who had brother. Do you hear?—you must aid him." The spoken, and still spoke, in tones all the more imcountenance of the girl was full of boldness, al-pressive for their unnatural calmness; "it does not most anger; her brows were drawn into sharp wander. It clings to its purpose. I will do this straight lines, and a red spot flushed out on each thing which the world calls utterly vile. I will do cheek.

clare my motive and receive my punisment. I will say that I did the deed to save others—even the father whom I robbed; that I shuddered at the deed, and scorned to benefit by it; that I did my duty as I understood it."

"Be gentle, Joan," said Lewis Gregory. "It is our father to whom you speak.'

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it with a high intention, and pure hands."

"Jenkin," said Miles Gregory, the miser, in a husky whisper, "what shall we do?" But Jenkin was beyond giving counsel. He had been weeping, sighing, or groaning, continuously, since the arrival of his young master; and now, turning his shrivelled face from one to another, looked entreatingly, but said nothing.

"I think of that,” replied Joan. "But there are things which we cannot endure from any hands. God knows, my own suffering-if it brought me to death-ah! how welcome death becomes to the miserable!—would never wring a word of anger or reproof from me. But it is you, and your little "I have no money-none to speak of," said the ones, and your poor wife. I am in despair. I will miser at last, eagerly, as if he had caught a spar speak. I will control. The thing must, and shall in the whirl of the sea of misery-" but there is a be done. Father, if you were dying, and a medi-bond of Jeptha Smooth, and John Stanton-a great cine of sure virtues, which would at once restore bond-a bond for nine thousand dollars."

Joan had become the principal director of the business of the interview. Looking doubtfully into the crafty eyes of her father, she said:

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These were the great speculators who are now ruined; is it not so?"

you, were locked away near at hand, would I not use force to reach it, to procure it, to save you? Well, my brother and his dear ones are in deadly peril; the means of saving them lie yonder; you look alarmed—there is cause for it. I tell you, father that your hordes of money must be opened, "Yes," said her brother, musing, "but the bond aye emptied, if that is necessary, for this great pur- might be collected, in whole or in part. I know of pose. You are destroying yourself-pining your certain funds left from the wreck of these men. body-and laying away stores of remorse to kill If, sir, you place this bond at my disposal, it may your very soul. Perhaps I should have been reso- give me much relief." lute, instead of sad, in my struggle to save you in The miser groaned. The bond might, after all, past times. But now, surely, when the poison be collected; but as he hesitated, a vision of poswhich destroys you is to destroy all, and our house sible results-a failure in the attempt to collect, is to be ruined-even to the little ones-even to the with lawyers, clerks, sheriffs, turning and fastenchild here in my arms—I say my tears shall scorch ing like leeches upon his substance, came to the their sources before I shed one of them; my hands rescue. Then, too, the glowing eyes of his daughshall act. Father, I will rob you-do you hear?-ter were upon him, and she had shaken him with a rob you." terrible fear. How far, parental love, which surely Lewis Gregory seemed infinitely shocked. The was in his heart, for from no heart can it be extir

pated, and it had been visible in his old, unhappy face upon the entrance of his son, had to do with the questionable sacrifice he was about to make, I fear to conjecture. He promised to give up the bond to his son, but took no step to get it. His eyes wandered from a part of the room, in which nothing was visible, to its occupants.

CHAPTER III.

A day or two had elapsed. Joan Gregory had gone to the house of her brother, in Casseltonlittle neighbouring town. Lewis Gregory sat in the shade of a tree, which almost roofed, with its spreading boughs, the grassy enclosure before his "He fears to betray the hiding-place of his cottage. An expression of hopefulness blended riches to his children; poor-poor father!" mut- with the quiet resignation, which extreme pallor, tered Joan Gregory, upon whom softer influences and sightless eyes, usually gave such winning ef were beginning to work. "Come brother; I will fect to, in his fine face. A great present danger return for this bond." And Joan left the room, would be met and overcome, by the means which bearing the child, and leading the blind man. Jen- his father had placed in his hands. His wife, inkin hobbled after her. Left alone, Miles Gregory deed, lay upon a bed of sickness, from which she locked the doors of the great room, and presently had not risen for a long time; but her malady was put a key to a part of the wainscotting, which ex-stealthy and gradual, cheating the fears of love by tended, in pannels, as high as the chair-board. He its very slowness, and especially by occasional unlocked a hidden door, which, opening, disclosed bright reactions into apparent health. The good a spacious recess in the wall. Into this he thrust his hands, and presently drew them out with a parcel of papers in them. He hurriedly took one from the rest, put the others back, reclosed the door, locked it, slipped the key into his pocket, and, glancing about him, became quite a placid and kindly old gentleman to look upon.

Joan Gregory, on returning to her father's room found the door unlocked. She entered, passed swiftly to where the old man had seated himself in the wicker chair, received the paper from his hands, and, bending over him, burst into tears.

"Father," she said, "forgive me. I was most wretched. It was only a terrible necessity that made me speak such words to you. Forgive me, Father." The old man put an arm about his daughter's neck, and a tear ran down each cheek, slowly, and as if the eyes, fully open, and with no expression whatever, were unconscious of their escape.

"This is good," he said. quiet. Love me Nanny." The girl seemed shocked. your mind?" she said anxiously. Anne."

"Now we will be

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success, with which the appeal to Miles Gregory had met, had been a restorative to the sick woman; and as her blind husband sat hopefully, under the summer tree, she called her children about her, and with flushed cheeks, and bright eyes, enjoyed their merriment, and caresses. Joan Gregory, enjoyed this scene, yet stole from it, and joined her brother.

"We have a glimpse of happiness, to-day," said the girl," and I think, brother, that happiness is a great medicine. But the work is far from complete. We must, gradually, get rid of all debts, and secure some provision for the future. I think that the least costly mode of doing so, will be to restore your sight. You could then labour, and achieve every thing."

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"Restore my sight?" said Lewis Gregory, turning his dim eyes to his sister. I despair of so great, so unspeakable a blessing. No-no-all that is beautiful in the outward world is forever lost to me, except in the visions which my memory supplies to me. Blindness is a terrible curse, my dear. It is captivity in a deep dungeon; and this, "Have I shaken always terrible, becomes killing to the heart, when the bondman knows that, around him, beyond his prison-house, those dearest to him, his wife, his little innocent children, are calling upon him to help and sustain them. Wild beasts will contend with their bars, and crash their strong jaws against the iron, to escape to the aid of their young. The iron bars are not more impassable than the walls of darkness which press around, and shut me in, whilst my children-like little Anselm and Gaddocall from beyond, upon me, for bread."

"I am not out of my mind," replied the old man, a crooked suspicion stealing in amongst his better emotions, and driving off the momentary torpor into which his mind had fallen. "I can look after my own without your helping me. You'll want some one-eh ?—shortly, to take care of the old man's money."

Joan turned, with a sigh, and left the room. Again left alone, Miles Gregory looked long at the part of the wall in which his treasures were concealed. Doubt and distrust were evidently returning in undivided force upon him. Then he seemed to become peevish, and crushed, with the point of his stick, a large gray spider that came out upon the floor, and approached him with the confidence of a long established friendship.

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The more terrible the calamity," said Joan, "the more we should strive to remove it. There are famous oculists in the world. Money will buy their skill. Money we must have for this great work. Let but the blessed sunshine gleam in through these shut gates, and you are free, safe, and happy. You liken yourself to a man in priIf you were so in fact, I would tear my way

son.

"Who is it that comes riding so?" asked Lewis Gregory.

"Listen," answered the girl with a white face. As she spoke, some boys, who ran upon the sidewalks, imitating the spasmodic motions of the gal

"Old Miles-Old Miles-hurrah for the miser!" (To be continued.)

through stone-walls, with bleeding hands, if there
were no other means of restoring you to freedom.
With the same devotion, I will extricate you from
this dungeon of blindness, if God permits me to do
so. Human obstacles shall not turn me aside. A
portion of our father's misused wealth must be de-loping horse, shouted:
voted to this good purpose. In saving you, and
yours, it will make even himself happier. Bro-
ther, this present aid, which gives you so much re-
lief, has already had its humanizing effect upon
him. Tears were in his eyes, as I spoke with him.
Tears are rain to the desert of such a poor old
man's heart. And then, too, something must be
done for dear Grace, who is quite happy now that
her husband is relieved. The soft airs of some
distant countries are healing, and saving, to such
invalids. Our father's misused wealth must place
this cure within her reach. I will not bend or yield
until these great works are accomplished."

"You speak," said Lewis Gregory, "too hopefully. If we can vanquish the infirmity of our poor father, so far as to gain a payment of my remaining debts, and a safe provision for my family, it will be more than I dare now even to hope for; an unspeakable blessing-one to fill my heart with gratitude to God, who has won me nearer to him by this affliction."

As the blind man spoke, a horseman approached. The horseman was Henry Grant, of Statton. He dismounted, and joined Joan Gregory and her brother, on the grass in the shade of the tree. He came to make a direct offer of pecuniary aid to Lewis Gregory; a moderate present aid, to be increased in the future. Joan and her brother, aware of this generous man's struggles against the very evil of debt, which he was seeking to alleviate in another, heard his offer with much feeling, and told him of the successful application to Miles Gregory, which rendered his aid no longer necessary.

"The bond of Jeptha Smooth, and John Stanton, can be collected," said Lewis Gregory. "It will be taken in present discharge of executions against me. I have made an arrangement to this effect, and am to transfer it this evening. I have no pressing debts which this will not discharge." This is certainly a great success," said Henry Grant. "All will end well. Give us but time." "Yes," said Joan Gregory-"time, and the blessing of God. We possess, already, resolute hearts. Do you know that this present success has made me very hopeful, and quite happy ""

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"Who is it that rides so fast?" said Lewis Gregory, bending his head, and listening. "Some one comes, at a gallop, on the Hackwood road. He is now on the sounding flat, just over the hill."

THE RETURN OF SONG.

BY WM. H. HOLCOMBE.

I thought my love of song had fled,
Like other loves before;

I thought my harp had lost its string,
And could resound no more.

But when the Spring with odorous breath,
Came smiling o'er the lawn,
And evening with her fairy lights
Rivalled the fairy dawn,

The fresh and bright enamelled turf-
The dews that on it lay-

The shadow of the young green leaves,
The first sweet bud of May,-

All-all these beauteous things combined,
And through the senses made
A glowing spring-time for the mind,
With flowers and sun and shade.

And then my harp with trembling string,
Gave forth a gentle tone,

A soft and pleasant melody

That only seemed its own,

For Powers of whom I cannot tell,
Or what, or whence they be,
Like winds through an Eolian harp,
Whispered their thoughts to me.

Madison, Indiana.

THE CRIMINAL CODE OF VIRGINIA.

The new Criminal Code, framed by the last Legislature, is now published-occupying just 72 pages.

We discover still some obscurities, and some adherences to old verbosity; but taking it all in all, Virginia never before saw such a sample of terse, clear, sensible and well arranged legislation. It makes punishable, we believe, a considerably greater number of offences than former laws did; yet fills not a fifth, perhaps not a tenth, of the space which those laws filled. And it contains hardly a A cry escaped from the lips of Joan Gregory. hundredth part of the matter for doubt, for utter

In a minute, an old, strangely dressed man, mounted upon a grotesque old horse, passed the comb of a near hill, at a gallop which seemed a paroxysm of the rickets.

perplexity to the reader or judge, that they con- quote a small part of it, italicizing the redundant tained. words; and only remarking, that the phraseology not thus pointed out is often far more circuitoes than is necessary:

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That where any person or persons within this Commen wealth shall be desirous of draining his, her or their

There is a great improvement, in the more rational graduation of punishments to offences. We are glad to see that offenders may now again be confined in the penitentiary for one year only, when the transgression is light enough to justify so short a term: annulling a rule established by the mista-lands, and it shall be necessary for such purpose to ken wisdom of a former law, which made three years the shortest time.

conduct the water through the lands of another person or persons adjoining, by means of a canal, ditch or drain, to be cut or made for that purpose, and cannot obtain permission from such adjoining proprietor or proprietors by consent or agreement, it shall be lawful for such person or persons so desiring," &c., &c., &c.

It is a pity that solitary confinement for part of the term is not also restored. Despite the sentimental whining of Mr. Dickens in his "American Notes," over the sorrows of a solitary convict in the Philadelphia Penitentiary, we believe that feaThis intolerable rigmarole certainly was penned ture in the system to be worth all the rest togeth-by some sub clerk of a committee-not by the clerk er, for reforming offenders, and inspiring a salutary proper, to whom it is said that the drafting of bills horror of crime. Against Mr. Dickens, and against is often left, far less by any member, unless he were the sickly sensibility of our own legislature, back- a pettifogger. The members who so ably second ed even by the opinions of our Penitentiary phy-Messrs. Patton and Robinson in their work of shortsician,—we place, triumphantly, the statistics of ening the penal code, should not have let such stof the penitentiaries in Pennsylvania, and divers other proceed from the body to which they belonged. states, shewing a vast superiority to our own in To keep such quackery out of our laws, surely the health, reformation, and all the other ends of pun- Revisors will prefix to the WHOLE Code a set of ishment. Whatever failure there was in our for- definitions, by which the language of all our legis mer experiment, must have resulted from some de-lation may be squared. One of these definitions fect in carrying out the plan. Were the solitary should say that the singular shall be held to incells properly aired, lighted and cleansed? Were clude the plural; and the masculine, the feminine. they furnished with plenty of clean water, for wash- Another, that a general term shall include all things ing? Was the convict made to wash himself all fairly embraced within it. And so on.* over, every day? Was plenty of clean clothing regularly brought to him, and did frequent inspections prove that he put it on? Was work allowed him, to exercise his limbs and relieve the dreariness of solitude? Was there a small court open to the sky, near his cell, where he might walk twice or thrice a day, attended by a keeper? If all these precautions for health were taken, and others which might be mentioned, then it might be doubted whether solitary confinement is compatible with health. If the solar light, the light of day, was at all excluded, this alone was cause enough for dis

ease.

To specify a few of the new provisions in the Criminal Code

Called Courts, for the examination or trial of criminals, are abolished; and the regular terms of the county court substituted for them.

The jury-law in criminal cases, which was passed two sessions ago, and was remarkable for its clumsy complication, is modified into more rational shape; retaining all its best features-e. g. the summoning of jurors remote from the scene of the crime,-calling them from an adjoining county when competent ones cannot be gotten from the proper county,-paying those so summoned,-reducing the number of challenges, though not su ficiently,-&c.

The venue may be changed, on motion of the commonwealth's attorney, as well as of the pri

soner.

The Code has definitions prefixed, declaring the senses in which certain words shall be taken; and calculated to prevent the many tiresome and ungraceful repetitions that puff out ordinary statutes. There are not enough of such definitions, however: and their application is unhappily restricted to this Robbery, by one armed with a dangerous wea code of 72 pages. They ought to have been made on, is punished by five or ten years in the Stale applicable to all enactments of the Virginia Legis- prison; if not so armed, by three or ten years. lature, criminal and civil; to all indictments, dec- The former law punished only robbery in or near larations and pleadings; nay, and rules of con- a highway. All reference to a highway is now struction like them should be declared lawful in all omitted.

soever.

deeds, wills, and other instruments of writing what- The attempt to commit any crime is punished, To show the need of such a condenser with a severity apportioned to the crime attempte and simplifier as those definitions would be, let any ed. Till now, (strange to say,) no mere attent one read an act of the late session to provide for draining lands, when adjoining proprietors will not let their lands be entered for that purpose. We

* See the article on "Wordiness in Legislation," March No. of the Messenger.

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