nal bounty, which has brought back peace and cheerfulness to my household." The word "gold" sounded like the clear ring of the metal itself on the ear of the miser. The "I have my reasons," replied the old man with vision of the broken box and streaming coins, which a dogged look. "You have a great many words. had quickened the evil of his nature into furious Give me back the bond. Are you going to be re-action, and removed all checking fears by sharpenbellious? You are an undutiful son. Do you ing his invention into schemes for hiding his wealth want to rob me? I thought that was Joan's business." "Be it so then," said Lewis Gregory, with infinite sadness. "My course is clear. What you gave, again take. But God forgive you for the wretchedness with which you overwhelm us. feel that what you now do is fatal." 66 Joan stepped between father and son. "This must not be," she said. are mad." I "Hold your tongue, Jezebel," screamed the old man. "This is not your business. You have nothing to say." surely, came clearly before him, and confirmed him into a stony obduracy. He replied to his daughter only by repeating, like some old grim parrot with a cracked voice, his one cry-"Give me back the bond." Joan, deadly pale, not supported, as in the former scene, by a passion which made a bold crime appear a high duty, stood quivering, unnerved, and Father, you despairing. This girl, so bold, and so adamantine in her resolution, could now find nothing to resolve; no scope for action of any sort. She had brooded upon her former threat to take by force the means of relief-had come to perceive the enormity of "Nothing to say? I have much to say," Joan that wild resolution-had dismissed it from her answered. 66 Father, you must not do this fatal | mind with a horror which made its return impossideed. We had a terrible scene in getting this pa-ble-and so, now, she stood disarmed, without a per from you. Are we to have another? Am I purpose, despairing. She had promised not to to unsex myself daily? Almighty God preserve yield, not to bend, until the full work, not only presme from madness! What is there in this poor base ent relief from debt, but eventual happiness bought paper, that all of safety, that life and reason, should at the cost of a full provision for the future, of exdepend upon it? Take it back, and I am no lon-pensive travel, of expensive skill of celebrated men, ger your daughter; Lewis, this blind man with the had been accomplished; she would never yield or noble heart, is no longer your son; the little beg-bend, and yet what could she now do, when met at gars, his children, must go out pleading to God and the first step. Colin, in one of Spenser's pastoman against you. A gulf is sunk. We are band-rals, has an epigram-" He that aimeth at a star, ed on one side-you are left desolate on the other. Old man, you are insane to sacrifice all to this base craving to get your poor gift back again." "Words-words! Hold your tongue," exclaimed the father, his ferret eyes gleaming. oft stumbles o'er a straw." The high designs of poor Joan, providing for the good of many persons, fell at once before the will of an old man whom children shouted after. Meantime the loud speaking had startled the "I will not," answered Joan. "I will speak; nest of young children, and the happy mother who but not to threaten you as I did once. I have enjoyed their merriment and caresses, in the adgrieved over that. Is there no safety-no escape-joining room. Lewis Gregory heard a door open, no refuge? And we were just now dreaming of and then a feeble foot-fall. Only the blind man so much to be done to brighten the future. Fa- heard these sounds. 66 "It is Grace," he muttered-" it is Grace." And, indeed, this was true. The sick woman, ther, this gift, which you have come, with the very children mocking you, to recall, opened a golden gate to us. We were all to be so happy. Even tottering as she walked, came into the room. Her you were to be a cheerful old man, surrounded by white feet were bare. Her face, much emaciated, hearts to love you, and hands to aid you. We had the bright hectic spots. The veins were visiwere to be one united family. Lewis was to see ble, in blue lines, under her unnaturally transpaagain. Grace, his dear wife, was to be well again. rent skin. Her eyes were singularly large and The children were to grow up to be high-hearted prominent. men, and refined women. You come; you undo "Father," said Lewis Gregory, suddenly rising, all; you sink us from great happiness to a wretchwe must bring this business to an end. I cannot edness the more intense for the glimpse of better assure you, or myself, that I am free from anger. things. And it is all for this paper-this poor mis- Nor am I sure that an honest anger is not called erable shred. Father, forget that there is such a for. You sacrifice me, and worse, this poor wife, paper. Go back to Hackwood, and gather your to an unworthy passion. But I must not speak, moneys, and hug them in your old arms, and glad. I must not feel, a harsh censure of what you have den your withered heart with them. You will done. God clear your heart and mind of this weaknever miss this gift. It is not silver, or gold; and ness. I return the bond to you." And he placed why should you love it as you do silver and the bond in his father's hands. gold?" "You do right, husband," said the sick woman, putting an arm upon the blind man's shoulder. at last said. "Let us love each other, and trust in God." What was it that changed the expression of the miser's countenance, as his son placed the reclaimed gift in his hands-substituting, for the look of resolute hardness, one of doubt, and inward debate? The distress of the scene had seemed not to touch him, until his end was gained. The end gained, was he giving way to feeling, about to undo the cruelty, to which he had borne on stubbornly, at the cost of broken ties, overthrown hopes, and an old age made desolate? He held the bond in his right hand. Now he would hold it loosely; again he would tighten his grasp upon it. At last he said, but in so low a tone as to be scarcely audible even to the quick ear of his blind son: "You are to help them-are you? Pay me the moneys you owe me. Pay your own debts." Henry Grant replied, in some astonishment, "I am not aware that I owe you any thing. I am certainly very much in debt, and can do less to relieve your son than I should wish. But how is it that I owe you money?" "You know nothing about it? That is not so. You owe me $10,000. You must pay it, every cent, I have taken advice. No quarter-no at once. quarter." "Ah!" exclaimed Joan, "what is this! Are we to be beaten down at every step?" Henry Grant interposed 66 "Dear Joan, these things affect you sadly. There "We must see about it; he must be helped. ought to be an end of all discussion for the presThis won't help him. We must look about. We ent. Be alone for some time, and collect your must find a way." courage. I exasperate your father; he is certainWithout waiting to put together the fragments ly under some delusion; but we will clear it op which he caught of this speech, Lewis Gregory, hereafter. Farewell, for to day." kissing the bloodless lips of his wife, lifted her Saying this, he left the house. He mounted his readily with one arm, gave the other hand to his horse, and betrayed his humor by urging him to a boy Miles, who also had come to his side, and gui-swift gait with severe strokes of the spur. ded by the child, bore her back to her room. Joan heard the sobbing of the sick woman, and consoling words uttered by the blind husband. Her father's relenting looks, and words holding out some promise, had been lost upon her. "The work is done," said the despairing girl. "We are given over to perdition. I am no longer your daughter. We, your children, have no longer a father. His heart is dead. We will labour, beg, or die together. Go back and enjoy what you have done. Clutch that paper so much more valuable than happiness on earth and in heaven. Leer your delight over it. It is the price of your soul, and of your children, and of your grandchildren. You have sold all to ruin for it. Go now!" Her face had become livid. Her voice, broken into short utterances, sounded like so many stabs of a blunt knife. Her arms hung without guidance or control. Her eyes were glassy. Henry Grant, who had entered the room, approached her. Come," he said resolutely; "we are not obliged to despair. We will find some means of supplying the place of this gift, which your father has taken back. I can do something at once, and soon may be able to do all, for the relief of your brother." "This is a terrible old man,” he said. “He crushes the good, and the weak. He is pitiless and obdurate." Muttering such words to himself, he rode fast upon his way. CHAPTER VI. The road, upon which Henry Grant travelled, was the same by which the miser had come to Casselton. In going from the village to Statton, you pursue this road very nearly to Hackwood before diverging. Riding at a gallop, Grant cleared the village hills, and came in view of the wide flats of the estate of the Gregories. The peaked gables of the old house were visible in the distance. Alas that its desolate walls should be the ring beyond which he could not bear the gentle and good Anne! As he thought of the tragedy of this family to which love bound him, a tragedy passing rapidly to a climax, if not to a conclusion, and struggled through crowding schemes, seeking relief with stubborn perseverance, the anger, which had been excited by contact with the miser, gave way gradually to calmer, and more profound, emotions. The gallop of his strong horse became a walk, and his head sank into the musing attitude. Riding in this way, he was not aware of the approach of a beautiful girl, who came to meet him with a light and quick step, until she had drawn quite near. A lit This was very impolitic. The miser was angered to find another stepping in to do the good which he had himself refused to do. One would have supposed from his looks, that Grant had been tle handkerchief was pulled over her head, by s guilty of a mortal offence. The sharp ferret eyes tight grasp at the chin. Her carriage was upright, sparkled with passion; the old thin lips worked her face bespoke an earnest purpose. This girl, with a sort of pulsing motion of the lower against walking alone upon the dusty highway, was Anne the apper. Gregory. Henry Grant was, in a moment, out of "You-you-what business is it of yours?" he his saddle, and at her side. "Yes; that is it," replied Anne. "We are not very happy. Indeed there is some dark fate about us all-is it not so ? A noise, any sudden event, any change from the usual, makes me shake with dread of something-what I do not know. Now, it is a great relief to be with you. But has any thing terrible happened?" which your sister has confined us. I have seen your father, who instead of a drivelling and imbecile old man, whose miseries I could not be permitted to witness, has shown himself a terrible one, and may excite many emotions, but hardly that of contempt. He is too fully armed and too strong of will to leave us with a front of contempt. I will in a short time go to him and say boldly, 'Give me your daughter.' Perhaps he will yield. Perhaps not. The course is, at least, the course of duty." "And I," said Anne, "will entreat him to consent. We may move him." It was determined that Anne Gregory should return to Hackwood; and Henry Grant, leading "Nothing very terrible Anne, when the nerves his horse, walked by her side. The carriage of are strong," said Grant. "Your father gave your the lawyer, hitherto hidden by some sycamores, brother a bond a few days ago, and he has now re-interposed by a bend of the tree-lined stream menclaimed it. This is all. But Anne," he continued, tioned as washing the base of the Hackwood hill, "Hackwood is a house full of whispering terrors became visible to them, as they drew near the to you, and you must leave it, and be my wife. I tumble-down gateway in front of the house. When love you as my wife now; and how can any one have peace of mind who knows that his wife, away from his side, is trembling with wretched fears, and even in a condition of physical suffering? You owe love to your father; but this you can feel for him without devoting yourself to a wretchedness which can be of no service to him. For God's sake, weigh these words of a plain honest man, and act reasonably upon them." Anne, answering his enquiry, said that the fine carriage had brought Achilles Wiley to Hackwood, Grant became for a moment silent and thoughtful. "This man has caused all of to day's grief and trouble," he presently muttered. "I shall have something to say to him." Peterkin, The fat coachman dozed on his seat. the lean footman, stood with a melancholy patienee, his wrists crossed before him, and one hand holding a hat ornamented with a yellow band. A great fly buzzed about the fat coachman's nose, but its buzz lulled him. An occasional musquito tasted the lean footman, and finding nothing savoury, retired in disgust. It was all very "I will weigh them," said Anne Gregory; "but I think my final answer will be the one which occurs to me at once. I love you truly, and with such devotion, that if the love be thwarted, I scarcely think I shall find anything in life worth living for. This may sound like some folly of a young still; the gay equipage, and all belonging to it, and romantic person; but I do think that my love had succumbed to the genius of the place—a dead goes so far. And yet, master Henry, it is clearly my old place, with only a life of barn swallows, marduty to do nothing unbecoming a pure lady-to be- tins, and the humming insects through whose come your wife in no secret or passionate manner- swarms the swift birds would make paths of but openly, with consent of my friends, and at the slaughter, in the humid calm of the mild evening. cost of no rudely broken ties. I might listen to my The lean automaton made but one practised step heart, and go with you now, this very day, to be to one side, saluting with a motion of his hat; your wife; but to-morrow-to-morrow-what would the fat coachman stirred a little in his slumbers, be the scene at Hackwood? and reflection would and then was again oblivious, as the gentleman make me unhappy for a long time. The recollec- and lady passed them, and entered the house. tion of violated duties is not sweet. Anne was soon in her chamber, and Grant in love me; if you do not, all is lost for me; but do the presence of Achilles Wiley. Salutations, not urge me beyond a free use of my reason. And smooth and wordy on the part of the lawyer, yet I will weigh what you have said, and if I can reserved on the part of the young country gentlesee my duty differently, I will yield to your wishes." man, were interchanged. Then, losing no time, The innocent girl, whose every tone and look Grant said: bespoke a charming maiden modesty, and a frank nature, looked upward with fully lifted eyelids into her lover's face, as she spoke. Continue to "You are always good, and gentle," said Henry Grant. "But the obstacles that separate us must soon be overcome." After a little reflection, he continued I have just witnessed a distressing scene, with which I think you must have had something to do." "Explain," said Wiley; "I profess I do not understand you." "Miles Gregory made a valuable gift to his son Lewis Gregory. To-day he rode from this house "We must break through this passive folly, to which he has not left for some years, and came in VOL. XIV-78 haste, and as if at some sudden and unusual insti- | natural affection must induce him to bestow upon gation, to his son, and obliged him to relinquish his xcellent son. Do you perceive a breach of the gift. The persons who played losing parts in honesty, or innocence, in this conduct of mine!" this scene were a blind man, a sick woman, a bro- Scarcely, as you state it," Grant replied. ken-hearted girl. I have some homely sympa. But you have, notoriously, very adroit powers thies, and I confess that I have come from wit- of narrative. Leaving this matter for the present, nessing it with no little distress of mind, and with there is another which perhaps you can explain. some disposition to hold the cause of it personally In the interview at the house of Lewis Gregory, responsible." his father spoke of a debt of $10.000 due to him from myself. I know nothing of such a debt. Can you give me any light on the subject ?" The lawyer at once mastered the map of the honest mind before him. He answered with a subdued smile: "I suppose, such being the case, that you desire me to bear a cartel to my old friend of Hackwood. That would be something quite interesting." Angry blood mounted to Grant's cheeks. But he checked a rough insult which had nearly escaped him, and answered calmly, weighing his words: The lawyer had stirred this debt into life, and had undertaken to propel it against the man before him but his composure did not fail him in the least, as, armed with an apparent candor which the shrewdest men adopt as the very best means of deceiving, he answered : "Yes: I can give you information about that debt. Your father joined Ireton, his neighbor, in a “You are a cool, practised person. Mr. Wiley. bond to Smooth and Stanton. These last named You can divert an attack upon yourself very adroit parties assigned the bond to Miles Gregory, in part ly to the body of another; and you can sport with payment for lands purchased of him. The debt a supremely ridiculous notion, with quite a serious is Ireton's; your father drew no advantage from face. Possibly you will be amused by my simpli-the transaction. He was, in fact, merely a surety. city in gravely declaring that I have no desire to Miles Gregory can hardly think of pressing this send a cartel to the person of whom you speak. Possibly you will not be amused when I say that I look upon yourself as the true object of my re large debt against you; at least until measures against Ireton have failed. And of this there can be little danger. Ireton, of course, can discharge it." "Perhaps so," said Grant musing. "But tell me how it happens that I hear of this thing for the first time now-just in connection with your presence here at Hackwood ?" The lawyer was somewhat at a loss for a reply; he however said: "Coincidences occur. And perhaps peculiar circumstances-annoyance at some feeling interference of yours, in the recent interview, perhaps— led the old gentleman to speak of it." Grant persevered : "Did you, or did you not, suggest and advise as to this debt, in the conversation here, in this house, to-day ?" 66 "My young friend," replied Achilles Wiley, 'you must be aware that, as a man of honor. I can make no answer to your singularly offensive question. A gentleman scarcely endures to be catechised in so extraordinary a manner.” Wiley bit his nether lip and resumed : "I pass them by. The connection between my presence here, and the really distressing circumstances of which you have spoken, is easily and “I then take for granted that you did what you innocently explained. I came to effect the ar- refuse to deny," said Grant." You are not a man rangement of a debt due from my clients, Smooth on the one hand to utter a direct lie, or on the other and Stanton, to Miles Gregory. I made an ulti-to withhold, for want of a certain etiquette in the mate proposition from my insolvent clients, condi- mode of asking, a satisfactory answer, when troth tioned upon a surrender of their bond. It seems will permit you to clear your skirts by giving it that Miles Gregory had given this bond to his son. I am persuaded that you have instigated the father Yielding to my offer-an advantageous one, made of Lewis Gregory to measures of hardship against quite professionally, and with no disposition to that good and suffering man." Here Achilles Wiwrong or distress one human being-my old friend ley tapped loudly upon his snuff-box. "I am also saw fit to reclaim the bond doubtless with the persuaded that you have suggested and advised in purpose of giving in another form the aid which the matter of this Ireton debt, and that but for you Achilles Wiley | wrath, followed. He was soon rolling away. As "The I should not have heard of it." took a profuse pinch of snuff. "These are wrongs he cleared the old gate way, whose carved figureto be atoned for; and yet I have no good ground heads, mutilated in features, looked down grimly, of quarrel, in the estimation of the world, against more like Lemures than the better guardian spirits, you. You are specious, and perhaps the mere as- his anger seemed to leave him. Even in so short sertion of your professional duties and immunities a time his habitual caution had regained the would sustain you with the public, and make my mastery. course appear wanton and absurd. But where gentlemen desire one of these useful collisions: as I do for the occurrences of to-day, and as you must do for certain words which I have seen fit to use in my conversation with you a little ingenuity can find a way. You comprehend me? It is understood then that you and I. meeting here at Hackwood, dissipated an hour's ennui with some spicy political discussions. It is understood that, becoming warm, you used certain very offensive expressions." "Well: go on," said the lawyer filling up a slight pause. "It is understood that you declined in the heat produced by the discussion, to retract these very offensive expressions, and that you chose rather to give me the manly satisfaction, which my wounded honor made it necessary that I should demand at your hands." "You have turned the corners of an hypothesis quite prettily," said Achilles Wiley; "but you have stopped short of the end by one clause." "What have I omitted?" Grant asked. “You have omitted to state that Mr. Wiley, the heat produced by the discussion having subsided, reconsidered his position, and after advising with honorable friends, retracted the offensive remarks. and apologized for them." Grant smiled in spite of himself. "I shall drop this business he mused. compensation isn't worth the danger. What a devil of a person this deliberate, slow-talking younster is, to be sure. Such enemies do harm, but no good. I must get upon an amicable footing with him.” Henry Grant rode away from Hackwood soon after the lawyer's departure. And he, in turn, had been but a little while gone, when Miles Gregory came back from the wretched visit to his son. CHAPTER VII. The miser cross-questioned Jenkin concerning Wiley's absence. Jenkin could give him no satisfactory information. He presently locked himself into his room. Sitting in his arm-chair, he pondered for a long time. Soon the annoyance, occasioned by Wiley's not awaiting his return, gave way to a train of absorbing thought. He had dared to reclaim the gift to his son, in defiance of his wild-tempered daughter, and of her former threats to rob him; because he had resolved to remove his hoards, and hide them away in a place of perfect safety. He had caught at this purpose, we have seen, as his hands were dipping into Wiley's gold. He had carried it with him as a stimulus to his resolution "I see," he said, "that you are not disposed in the encounter with his daughter and son. He heartily to such a meeting as I desire." 66 "Heartily? no," replied Wiley. Upon my word, I have no disposition on earth to it, either hearty or lukewarm.” “Then,” said Grant, “I suppose that such redress is not open to me. But you must leave this house at once, or I shall compel you to go, by personal violence." "My God!" exclaimed Wiley. "You shock This is unendurable." me. still retained it, in spite of Joan's changed manner, and the contrition with which she seemed to recal her threat; for the first impression had been sharply sunk into his suspicious, covetous, and fearful nature; and, in truth, he distrusted the genuineness of his daughter's present show of inactive, sluggish despair. He now meditated upon this removal of his boxes of money and other valuables. "I must begin to-night,” he mused. "The quarry pit will be the place. And then, then, when I "It may be unendurable,” said Grant, "but you am safe from the girl-why I shall do as I please.” must nevertheless go at once. What you began Was the affection of a father for his children this morning you shall not complete this evening." wholly gone? No: In all the scene at the house of This is horrible," cried Wiley; it becomes his blind son, there had been an ache of the heart, a matter very different from your supposititious under the cupidity and anger which he displayed. quarrel. This is to be weighed. Understand. sir, that in leaving this place, I go because the time has come for my doing so." **So I think." "Your threats have no effect upon my motives sir-none whatever. Peterkin! Peterkin!" The footman came in, and shouldering the box of gold bore it to the cararige. Wiley, in silent Perhaps this heartache, these pangs keen in the |