At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something in me not worth that rich beholding
As they have often given."

BLANCHE had been inexpressibly shocked by the death of her uncle, which the circumstances attending it had rendered so truly awful. Had the poor sufferer calmly resigned his existence, soothed and sustained by all those immediately connected with him, she then would have shed natural tears; but she must at the same time have felt relieved at the idea of his having been mercifully taken from a life of sickness and suffering. Now she shuddered with horror,

when she thought that the event was indeed arrived which they had so long anticipated; but reflected, also, that the death-blow had been in a measure struck by his unfeeling wife, who must have been aware of that state of weakness, which rendered every agitation likely to prove fatal.

As in agony of mind, poor Blanche pressed her head upon her pillow, the night after the sad event had taken place, she could not drive from her thoughts the image of her uncle as she had last seen him. She remembered all the tenderness-the awful tenderness of the last scene-his fond close embrace-the feeble, fluttering pressure of his hand-the last anxious look of his glazing eye-the faint faltering words, struggling to give further assurance of his affection. She wept long and bitterly. How should she again meet her unfeeling aunt? -how maintain even the same cold intercourse which had subsisted between them? How should she drag through the wearisome eighteen

months which must elapse before she would be of age, and at liberty?

The long heavy days which passed before the funeral, had been spent in strict seclusion by all the members of the family. Different feelings actuated each. Blanche, whose spirits were much shaken, and who was nervous and wretched, gladly availed herself of the privilege of keeping to her own apartments. No Julian visited her in her solitude, and his estrangement caused another pang to her heart. It would have soothed her to have seen the beloved son of her poor old uncle again renew those habits of confidence with herself, which before his illness he had observed-it would have consoled her to have mingled her tears with his; but he came not, and her proud spirit rebelled against suing for his notice.

The funeral of Lord Clairville had passed as such pageants usually do. The gloomy display-the nodding plumes-the emblazoned coffin-the mourners, who are usually a nume

rous and unconcerned company, discoursing to one another about the news of the day or the ordinary affairs of life-all was soon over; and the almost forgotten Viscount was brought only for a brief space to the recollection of surrounding multitudes, by the number of mourning coaches, and the other hired details of a spectacle which make, as it were, a mockery of grief.

Julian, of course, had attended as chief mourner; and amongst those who looked on his countenance, which was pale almost as death, and fearfully agitated, some gave him credit for strong filial affection, whilst others judged that the death of a father who was old and decrepit, and whose exit from this world put his son in possession of a princely fortune and ancient title, could not occasion such unusual emotion. They were right; still, how little can we fathom the secrets of the labouring breast. It is truly said, “The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and a stranger

doth not intermeddle with his joy." It is that bitterness, by which all conditions are equalized. The prince or the peasant alike may dwell on the melancholy remembrance of joys that are past and gone, or suffer from the actual presence of sorrow. The great man despises the gilded trappings of his state, and the poor forgets his poverty: both in the sad hour of affliction, or under the stings of awakened conscience, are fully sensible that man depends not on the favours of fortune for his happiness in this world.

Julian, although an affectionate son, had for so long a period been taught almost daily to expect his father's death, and had witnessed so much suffering in the poor invalid, that it could not be supposed that his present agitation was entirely connected with that event; but our readers will be aware, it arose from the contending passions of his mind.

He had just parted from Lady Florence, who, after one of those interviews, when she