off the anticipated marriage, which was the talk of the whole fashionable world; but I was not more reunited with my own. wife.

"More years passed by, and from the slave of passion I became the unprincipled libertine; I won the heart of one as gentle as good as my own Lily when first we met. She was the child of aristocrats, and she was too proud to divulge the shame I had offered; when my wife, by some means becoming acquainted with the tale, sought the injured girl whose fair fame was on the point of being blighted, and saved her from a life of infamy.

"I was now at the mercy of two women, yet neither betrayed me; in the intenseness of their grief they buried their deep wrong. The slave of his own waywardness sacrificed the Lily far more than when once she offered her love,-madly, thoughtlessly,

without bond or vow. And away from the early spot she so dearly loved, my poor injured wife sunk to her tomb, innocent, lovely, and broken-hearted. I have more to add-Instead of taking my daughter, I flew to the gentle girl whose love I had won, and telling of my wife's death, I had the hardiness of vice to offer her my hand.

"She spurned me, as the daughter of aristocrats or the daughters of virtue should spurn the wicked; but she confessed, too, how fondly she could have loved.

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Unhappy villain that I am! unlucky gift of person and disguise of heart, which could so chain two beings to my destiny! She, too, the daughter of rank and fashion, she sunk like the Lily; proving that all women have but one rank when virtue is the link between them.

"And now hearken to me, Lord Cunning

ton, you I have called proudly my friendbreak not young hearts, visit not the sins of the father upon the off-spring

Alice Lemington is my much-neglected

child."

CHAPTER XV.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

POPE'S Reflections.

To describe Lord Cunnington's feelings, when Lord Sevridge ceased to speak, would defy the power of my pen; for, in a few moments, many and varying thoughts succeeded each other in quick succession; his friend's face was averted from him, but as he heard those sighs of contrition, sorrow, and shame, the good nobleman felt all anger banished by the unction of sympathy and forgiveness, and he involuntarily exclaimed

"The Almighty is very gracious, and very forgiving when sinners repent."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried Lord Sevridge, pressing the invalid's hand: "thank you for your words. When other men would have spurned me, how differently you behave!"

"There would be less misery in the world if there was more sympathy. Oh! Sevridge, let your heart be comforted by the reflection that your wife was faithful to yourself, and guarded her secret to the very last."

"And you comforted her when I was away,- and you heard the latest tones of her gentle voice; Cunnington, Cunnington, can you conceive the bitterness-the shame of this moment ?"

And truly Lord Cunnington could not answer; for, with all his liberal forgiveness, he could not conceal from himself that no bitterness of feeling could cancel the past,