ties" of the attic; "the money that the poor old man would have paid to a solicitor for making his will would, I think, have exceeded that which could be realized by the sale of all that he had to bequeath."

66

'Perhaps, sir, you may find yourself mistaken in your conjecture," said the solicitor, for such he was; "you must have occasionally heard of the existence of misers."

"In my juvenile days I have read of such beings," said Stanford, "but I thought that the race had become completely extinct; I am sorry to hear that my poor old friend (for a friend I really considered him to be) was one of that class."

"I do not think you have any reason to be sorry on that account," said the solicitor, with a shrewd professional smile; "Mr. Jervis has, indeed, proved himself to be a true friend to you, and a very valuable one, by bequeathing to you the whole of his handsome property."

Stanford persisted in his opinion that there must be some mistake in the business, and Mr. Rothwell continued

"A few months ago, an old man waited on me, whose appearance gave me the idea that he had come to ask charity. I was surprised when he told me that he wished to have his will made; still more so, when he mentioned that he had property to bequeath of the value of thirty thousand pounds. I believe I gave him to understand that I was somewhat astonished at the disparity between his appearance and his riches,

for he frankly told me that he had outlived relations who were very dear to him, that the friends whom he had hoped would have supplied their place had deceived his trust in them, and that he had resolved to retire from the world, living in the simplest and quietest manner, in order thereby to escape the hypocritical adulation always shown to the wealthy. He added, that as the love of saving, like the love of spending, increases by indulgence, his frugality had, he was conscious, gradually degenerated into parsimony. A few months antecedent to his visit to me, he had met with an accident; a young surgeon had accompanied him home, and had ever since treated him with the utmost kindness and generosity; he could feel no doubt as to the purity of his motives, and he thought he could not do better than reward him for his disinterestedness by the bequest of his property."

A week after this conversation, old Jervis was handsomely and respectably, although not ostentatiously, consigned to the earth; and Stanford shortly engaged a pretty house in the Regent's Park, and busied himself in choosing furniture for it, in the selection of which he was greatly assisted by the taste of Clara Belson. The circumstance of the miser's will had, in the dearth of other news, been caught up by a newspaper reporter, and Stanford's old friends were speedily enlightened as to the exact particulars of his acquisition of fortune.

"What a lucky speculation Stanford has made of it!" sighed Mr. Trafford, casting a rueful glance on a ‹

dusty pile of the prospectuses of the defunct Joint Stock Company; "he has ventured a few pounds, and gained thirty thousand in exchange for them."

"What a lucky thing for the portionless Clara Belson, to get a husband who can give her a good establishment!" said Mrs. Trafford, sadly watching the receding steps of the lodging-house maid, who had just finished laying the cloth in their only sitting

room.

"Stanford would not have met with this noble recompense," soliloquized Nelcombe, "had he shown kindness to an old woman instead of an old man; the sex are imbued with the spirit of contradiction, and the ruling passion' is with them 'strong in death.'

"Happy Clara Belson!" said Mrs. Witherton to her aunt; "she has a mother living, who will doubtless condition that she shall have a settlement of ten thousand pounds at the very least."

Harville said nothing at all, but introduced the story of the miser as an episode in his satirical novel, representing that the young surgeon had known all along of the miser's wealth, but had had the discretion to keep his information to himself.

"Dearest Clara," said Stanford, on the evening of their wedding-day, "how little, a year ago, could I have hoped for the happiness that I now enjoy! I remember I was then defending gold-seekers, and openly avowing myself to be one of their class, and little anticipated that the gold which I had prepared

to earn so slowly and painfully by my professional exertions would descend upon me at once in a rapid shower. I must take warning by my poor friend Jervis, and not grow too fond of the 'glittering dross,' as the poets call it."

"There is little fear that such should be the case," replied Clara; "the comforts of life you are well justified in enjoying; and in regard to its luxuries, none, I am aware, will ever be so estimable in your eyes as 'the luxury of doing good.' Thus rightly knowing the uses of property, a sudden acquisition of fortune will not have the power of transforming you either into a spendthrift or a miser; but you will rather verify the words of Solon, who says, 'That house is the happiest where the estate is got without injustice, kept without distrust, and spent without repent

ance.'

"Appositely quoted," said Stanford; "such is exactly my own theory."

"And with you, dear Stanford," replied the bride, "Theory' is always exemplified by 'Practice.''

GEORGETTE.

SHE'S up with the lark, but it is not to hear His "blithe matin-song" that her couch she forsakes. (Her grandmother fancies it is; but 'tis clear

That grannies are apt to make dreadful mistakes.)

She strays by the moon's pallid lustre at night;
And tales, on returning, to granny relates,
Of soft balmy zephyrs, and silvery light,

And nightingales plaintively wooing their mates.

There's a voice she thinks sweeter than that of the

lark;

There's a kiss she prefers to the zephyr's salute; And a walk by the river, or stroll through the park, Would have charms for Georgette, though the birds were all mute!

THE END.