traced. My soul sunk into its uttermost depths, for I knew that my concealment could no longer be hoped for; I knew that my label was on my forehead—my curse was every where!

Yet I went on; and as the phrase goes, lived well: some of the gold still remained, and more of the jewellery, which had been generously allotted to me as my share in the plunder, though I gave no assistance in the act which procured it. The former was spent freely, and the latter could be available only with much caution. I passed through a large and commercial town, and discovered one, perhaps as wicked as myself, who gave me a compensation in money for the jewels which he could not but believe to have been stolen. My purse was weighed down with the price of this barter: I ate, drank, and lived well. But the knave who provided me with the means of riot, thought to do himself a further service, and plotted to deliver me into the hands of justice for a presumed crime. But I foiled him; for I was by this time an experienced, and therefore a cautious fugitive. Still, the further I went, the more securely I could employ my money, and consequently mix with others as a fellow creature. They wondered at my wealth-they wondered at my misery,—they thought that a man should be

merry who could live so well. It was not for them to know that every morsel of food I so purchased tasted to me like poison. The old woman's money fell from me like the drops of her own blood, which I was spilling at each fresh expenditure. It was not strange, therefore, that I still kept apart from these companions, and went alone over the face of the country, dreading all the common ways of men; but most of all, the thoughts of rest and of home.

Days went by unnoticed, undistinguished. The endings and the beginnings of time's various divisions were all confused. One evening, covered with the dust and mire of a long journey, with my bundle in my hand, and altogether wearing the aspect of a wayfarer, I entered a calm and happy village. The slender spire rose from a bosom of rich forest trees; its bell was ringing a soothing and solemn cadence; the country people were collecting in front of the open door, in their cleanly attire; and contentment rested on the face of all nature. The poor houses, scattered about with little uniformity of size or arrangement, were for the most part closed. A few only seemed yet to retain their tenants, and at the threshold of these I saw the elders of the family, half impatiently looking backward and forward, till they were joined by the young people,

whose tardiness kept them thus late within doors. Then, hastily proceeding, they also fell in with the general procession, and by amended speed made up for the time they had so lost. Presently, the whole village was like a solitude. The stragglers had ceased to follow, one by one, in rear of the more punctual portion of their little community; the church bell had ended its summons; not a door or shutter but seemed closed; and on the margin of the central pond, which was the resort of many a holiday beast,-now that their masters were elsewhere occupied, the very animals, to my fancy, seemed touched by a gentler spirit, and moved themselves with some instinct of reverence for the ceremony which that day renewed.

I was alone there! No footsteps but mine startled the chirping birds from their hereditary boughs; the brute creatures gazed at me as something strange, for every one besides had left them to their peace. What sudden feeling stole upon me in that solemn hour? Who turned my feet from their old path? I followed the track which I had seen so many others pursue, and the wicker gate at which it terminated opened easily on its hinges, even to my touch; and, through an avenue of yew trees and aged elms, I sauntered in a composed mood to the very

church door:-no one opposed my entrance,-I advanced, and was in the midst of the congregation. The sight of so strange a figure disturbed many a one, I think, from their pious thoughts; and when I raised my eyes, I saw the looks of contempt, or pity still less pleasing, on their countenances; and they moved backward, as if to avoid a contact with one so foul; so that I stood once more alone, in the centre of the sacred and full house of God-unreached by charity, even at a time when its exercise was most encouraged. My heart drooped as of old -my social spirit left me, and I was shrinking back again to the door, which I had so lately entered with the calmness of restored health, when some onea single creature of them all-held forth to me the hand of human fellowship.

She

It was a lady, young and most beautiful. Her years were few, to have taught her resistance to the vanities of our nature; her beauty was heavenly enough to have cherished them in others. leant forward, and whispering in the sexton's ear something unheard and unnoticed by the rest, her command was made known to me, and I was conducted to a separate seat. I gazed upon the fair lady -I marked her countenance, and its heavenward expression; to me it was an unknown pleasure to

contemplate one so innocent; and the atmosphere in which she lived could not, it seemed, give birth to other than meek thoughts and aspirations. For I— even I myself, in my foulness and blackness, and depth of deserved misery, felt the dew of heaven falling upon my soul, to refresh it after its long toil, and purify the vapours which darkened its innermost chambers!

From that hour my mind fled its old employments; and I lived in dreams of the future, whose sweetness was cheaply bought by all the woe I had hitherto undergone. With my remaining wealth I purchased land: I laboured in a thousand ways to advance myself, and fortune did not frown upon me. The lady was a near relation—they said, a niece, of the clergyman who officiated on that momentous Sunday in the village church. Amongst his parishioners there happened to arise a feud respecting the payment of tithe; and the little commonwealth, so peaceable when I first came to it, was soon afterwards rent with all the violence of civil commotion. The malcontents increased in number and obstinacy; and perhaps the more so because a stranger, who had scarcely yet become one of the actual population, dared to espouse the cause to which they were opposed. That stranger was myself; and whatever