world at any time, and less than ever now, when his earthly hopes had just received their deathblow; and he pursued his usual course, and preached even more eloquently than hitherto of the heavenly comfort held out for weary and sick hearts.

In the mean time Sir John and Lady St. John died within a few days of each other, and Edward found it necessary to return to England to take possession of his large estates.

Poor Louisa was wretched; his manner grew every day more unfeeling towards her, and this, added to the unaccountable silence of her father and mother, nearly broke her heart. At length they returned, and Sir Edward, after placing his wife in a small cottage in shire, left her,

whilst he proceeded to arrange his affairs. Louisa's first act was to write to her mother, and when the letter was gone, she prayed that it might have more success than her former efforts.

At length an answer came from Mrs. Brown, full of mingled tenderness and reproaches; the knowledge of her marriage had indeed been

balm to all their hearts; but, alas! one heart had ceased to beat, to whom this blessed vindication of Louisa's name would have brought joy indeed; the good old gamekeeper, her fond father, had died of a broken heart for the loss of his pride and blessing, his innocent daughter.

It was long before Louisa recovered the first shock of this intelligence; and this dreadful blow was followed up by a letter from her husband, informing her that she must not expect to see him any more, since he found that their tempers could never assimilate, and promising to allow her a yearly income adequate to her wants. This separation, on mature consideration, was rather a relief to poor Louisa; she had ceased to esteem or love St. John, and the continual irritability of his temper had caused her to lead a most unhappy life with him latterly. She could not bear the idea of revisiting the home where a kind father had been wont to greet her, and where desolation now reigned, but she prevailed on her mother to join her in

shire, and in a life of solitude and reflection she had

leisure to view all the errors of her own character and her past life. Her mind became strengthened by judicious reading and constant occupation, and no one who had known her in her thoughtless girlhood, with her laughing eyes and frequent smile, could have recognized her in the pensive, interesting woman. She associated with no one in the neighbourhood, and devoted herself entirely to the mother she had widowed by her unkind desertion of her loved father.

Louisa's astonishment was extreme when she discovered that none of her letters, excepting the last she wrote, had ever been received by her friends; this added tenfold to her grief for her father's death; the idea of what he must have felt at her seeming ingratitude was torture to her, and again and again did she request her mother to repeat to her the blessing which his dying lips had called down on her. But time passed, and her grief softened into a subdued sadness.

CHAPTER V.

"Ah! from sleep

Most vainly must my weary brain implore
Its long lost flattery now: I wake to weep,
And sit through the long day gnawing the core
Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser keep,
Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure
In my own soul its self-consuming treasure! "
SHELLEY.

MRS. BENTLY passed much of her time with Teresa St. John, and the fiend in her bosom was always less torturing under the influence of Lady St. John's gentle presence and soothing words.

One evening a party was assembled at the St. John's villa, consisting of the Bentlys,

leisure to view all the errors of her own character and her past life. Her mind became strengthened by judicious reading and constant occupation, and no one who had known her in her thoughtless girlhood, with her laughing eyes and frequent smile, could have recognized her in the pensive, interesting woman. She associated with no one in the neighbourhood, and devoted herself entirely to the mother she had widowed by her unkind desertion of her loved father.

Louisa's astonishment was extreme when she discovered that none of her letters, excepting the last she wrote, had ever been received by her friends; this added tenfold to her grief for her father's death; the idea of what he must have felt at her seeming ingratitude was torture to her, and again and again did she request her mother to repeat to her the blessing which his dying lips had called down on her. But time passed, and her grief softened into a subdued sadness.