"Curses on her proud, cold heart!” I heard her mutter. "It is she who has brought you to this by her pride and want of love!"

It is a long story, mother," said Derwent, trying hard to speak in a composed voice, but failing sadly in the effort, poor Well, mother," said Derwent, "I cansoul. "I have been unfortunate, and I not advise you what to do. If you have have been guilty, and between the two" not got the money, and will not raise it for (here he smiled with a flash of reckless me, I must suffer for my own act. My last gaiety more painful to witness than any de- chance was to send to you; if that fails me, spair) "I am done for. I have lost at play, I can meet my fate like a man. I have been heavily, the officers are after me, and I want the only one to blame; and now that the you to save me mother!" punishment must come, I will not whine over my fate, nor swear I was ill-used innocence. I have been mad, reckless, headstrong, and unprincipled—I will not add unmanly cowardice to the list."

"What do you mean Derwent?" I asked, for he spoke so fast, and in such a changed voice so weak, and yet so hoarse that I, confused yet by my own sudden failure of strength, could not follow half he said.

"I have committed forgery," said Derwent, with terrible distinctness, "and if I cannot redeem the bill before to-morrow at noon, I shall be arrested as a felon. Besides all this, I am dying of fever and ague."

Here that woman bent over him and kissed him, and I heard her whisper :

There was something in his tone which went to my heart: Had he cowered or whined, I should have left him to his fate; but the indomitable manhood with which he fronted his fate-sick, ill, deserted as he was -filled me with an admiration that stood somewhat instead of my old love. I felt my eyelids droop over my swollen eyes. I

'No, my Derwent, you shall not die, if rose from my chair-not passionately, and Melly's love can save you!"

Had I been a man-had I been even a passionate woman-I should have struck her. I never knew before what passion might arise from mingled jealousy and disgust. But I conquered myself, and said in a cold, measured voice:

"And what do you ask me to do for you, Derwent?"

I saw my son's lips quiver; I saw that woman's face flush, and her hand involuntarily clench, as she set her teeth, as if to keep back rebellious words. But Derwent, who had my blood in him, answered as coldly as I had spoken:

"I want you to pay the forged bill, mother, and so to rescue me from the hulks."

"For how much, Derwent? “For five thousand pounds!" "I have not got it," I said. "I have not above twenty pounds at my bankers; with your allowance I live now up to my full income, and have not saved."

"Is there nothing to sell?" exclaimed the woman, savagely, her large, black eyes glaring at me from under her tangled hair.

"Hush, Melly!" said Derwent; "do not interfere, you will only do harm, and make bad worse.'

MDCLXXXV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVIII. 6

yet with some irrepressible signs of emotion I laid my hand on his shoulder, and said, (O! how I tried to steady my faltering voice, and how I failed!):

"I will not let you suffer, Derwent! Tomorrow before noon this fearful evidence against you shall be cancelled and destroyed. Sleep in peace-you have still a mother for your hour of need."

"God bless you, mother!" cried Derwent, flinging his wasted arms round me, and burying his face in my bosom ; and, "O, you have something of a mother's heart in you, after all," said the woman, in a softened voice, passing her coarse hand caressingly over my shoulders. But through all the fur and velvet of my dress I felt her touch, like a repelling magnet, and shivered. She took her hand away, more sadly I fancied than insolently; and I felt sorry that I had allowed my repugnance to be seen.

"Ab, mother!" said Derwent, "you and I have been unfairly matched. I needed a freer life than that which you gave me when under your control, and the consequence was, what it always is, that, when I got my liberty, I carried it into license. And license leads to sin, mother, and sin to crime. It is a fatal union, but an inevitable one. If it had not been for Melly here, I should have!

been utterly lost; but she saved me when And something broke in me too. My almost too late though, by giving me some- pride fell from me, like ice under the breath thing to love and live for. She is not of of summer, and I took my son to my heart your station, mother," continued Derwent, as I had never taken him since he had lain while the woman laughed, and chimed in cradled there in childhood. His wife, too with "Thank God, no! I am no cold-the artist's model, the low-born daughter lady." "But she has a heart that would of a day laborer, the woman whose antecedo honor to a throne, and a power of love dents I knew and felt would not bear close that you, mother ought to envy. I was scrutiny-even she I suffered to kiss my glad to make my wife of one who dared be cheek, and checked the shiver of disgust natural and dared be free."" while she did so.

"I am glad, Derwent, that you are conBut do not think that I am one of those tented with your choice," said I coldly, for lying pretences of instantaneous conversion. I could not feign pleasure or participation; I did all for my boy that I promised. I our lives are to far sundered now to make redeemed his forged bill; I sold my estate, your surroundings matters of much conse- and established him in comfort and respectaquence to me. You have made your own bility. But that done, and done with iron life; and, be it ill or well, little of its shadow nerves and unfeeling heart throughout-I or sunshine can fall upon me. wrote him an adieu forever, changed my

which the excitement of passion had been able to meet could not be destroyed. What I was then I must still continue to be. My nature was not one either to change or to bend. I had never been able to contemplate In a country

"O, mother!" said poor Derwent, burst- name, and left the country, never to return. ing into tears," be, for once, good and lov-I could not live in England under the altered ing to me. I am weak and broken now, conditions of fortune and my child's social and you do not know how I have longed-retrogression-I, who had held my head so hungered, mother-for your voice and words; high, who had worn the immaculate ermine could they be only more loving and more with never a stain on its whiteness-I could kindly than they used to be. O, mother! if not stay to be the scorn where I had so long you had been softer to me; if you had been the envy of my circle. No, the pride drawn me to you and made yourself my friend, not only my monitress; if you had 'been more the woman, and less the mere abstract principle, you might have saved me from all that has befallen me. God knows, I do not mean to reproach you," he added disgrace with philosophy. passionately, "still less to throw on you where I shall not be known, and under an the responsibility for sins which I alone assumed name, I may once more walk with ought to bear. You followed the instincts my former dignity. If lower, according to of your own nature; and, if that nature our ideas, in social surroundings, at the least did not accord with the needs of mine, that I shall be untouched in moral pride. No was not your fault, only my misfortune," he one there, can point at me as the mother of added, with a faint attempt at his old, wild a possible felon; no one there, can say that levity, but failing as once before, and falling a false education bore fatal fruit, and that to broken, child-like, yet not coward weeping pride and exclusiveness produced degradation again. and ruin.

SABLE. OR COLORED M.P.'8 IN IMPERIAL PAR- (Dyce Sombre, and the ex-M.P. who repre

LIAMENT.

"Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shaded livery of the burnished sun."
-Othello.

sented Lymington for many years, John Stewart, Esq.) The bigoted anti-color party in the West Indies can never get over his election; but the auri sacra fames always carried him Can any of your readers recall to mind how through. I believe I am correct in saying, that many colored members ever sat in the House of neither of them troubled the house with a Commons. I know of two instances only speech.—Notes and Queries.

From Dwight's Journal of Music, June 5. THE FIFTIETH BIRTH-DAY OF AGASSIZ, THE NATURALIST.-MAY 28, 1857. [The following lines (as one will hardly need to be told) are by Longfellow, and were read among friends at a birthday dinner, which they will long keep in fresh remembrance.]

CHAPTER XXX.-AN ADVENTVRE.

Ir was September-the time when all Englishmen of a certain "rank in life" burn with unconquerable longings to get as far away from home as possible-and there was nothing remarkable in the appearance of this solitary traveller pacing along Calais pier-nothing remarkable, except his own personal appearance, which was of a kind not easily overlooked. There was nothing to be read in his embrowned but refined face, nor in his high thoughtful forehead. It was a face of thought, of speculation, of a great and vigorous intellectual activity; but the haughty eyes looked at no one the lips never moved even to address a child-there was no response to any passing glance of interest or inquiry. His head was turned towards England, over the long sinuous weltering waves of that stormy Channel which to-day pretended to be calm; but if he saw any thing, it was something which appeared only in his own imagination-it was neither the far-away gleam, like a floating mist, of the white cliffs, nor the sunbeam coming down out of the heart of a cloud into the dark mid-current of that treacherous sea.

the greatest and strangest contradiction of the whole.

He gave no attention whatever to what passed round him, yet he heard the foreign voices-the English voices-for there was no lack of his countrymen. It was growing, dark rapidly, and the shadowy evening lights and mists were stealing far away to sea. He turned to go back to his hotel, turning his face away from his own country, when at the moment a voice fell upon his ear, speaking his own tongue" You will abet an impostor-you who know nothing of English law, and are already a marked man." These were the words spoken in a very low, clear, hissing tone, which Lionel heard distinctly only because it was well known to him. The speaker was wrapt in a great cloak, with a travelling-cap over his eyes; and the person he addressed was a little vivacious Italian, with a long olive face, smooth-shaven cheeks, and sparkling lively eyes, who seemed much disconcerted and doubtful what to do. The expression of Lionel's face changed in an instant-he woke out of his moody dream to alert and determined action; he drew back a step to let them pass, and then followed, The discussion was animated and eager between them, sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, apparently as caprice guided the one or the other. Lionel did not listen to what they said, but he followed them home.

The old Italian parted with his companion at the door of the hotel where Lionel himself was lodged; there the Englishman in the cloak and cap lingered to make an appointment. "At eleven to-morrow," said again that sharp hissing voice. Lionel stepped aside into the shadow as the stranger turned reluctantly away; he did not care for making further investigations to ascertain his identity-it was Lord Winterbourne.

He had no plan of travel-no settled intentions indeed of any kind-but had been roaming about these three months in the restlessness of suspense, waiting for definite intelligence before he decided on his further course. An often recurring fancy of returning home for a time had brought him to-day to this common highway of all nations from a secluded village among the Pyrenees; but he had not made up his mind to go home he only lingered within sight of it, chafing his own disturbed spirit, and ready to be swayed by any momentary impulse. Though he had been disturbed for a time out of his study of the deepest secrets of human life, his mind was too eager not to have returned to it. He had come to feel that it would be sacrilege to proclaim again his own laboring He took the necessary steps immediately. and disordered thoughts in a place where he It was easy to find out where the Italian was, was set to speak of One, the very imagina- in a little room at the top of the house, the tion of whom, if it was an imagination, was key of which he paused to take down before so immeasurably exalted above his highest he went up stairs. Lionel waited again till elevation. A strange poetic justice had come the old man had made his way to his lofty upon Lionel Rivers-prosecuted for his ex- lodging. He was very well acquainted with treme views at the time when he ceased to all the details of Louis's case; he had, in make any show of holding them-separating fact, seen Charlie Atheling a few days before himself from his profession, and from the he left London, and satisfied himself of the very name of a believer, at the moment nature of his young kinsman's claim-it was when it began to dawn upon him that he too important to himself to be forgotten. believed-and thrust asunder with a violent He remembered perfectly the Italian doctor wrench and convulsion from the first and sole human creature who had come into his heart, at the very hour in which he discovered that his heart was no longer in his own power. He saw it all, the strange story of contradictory and perverse chances, and knew himself

Serrano who had been present, and could testify to the marriage of the late Lord Winterbourne. Lionel scaled the great staircase half-a-dozen steps at a time, and reached the door immediately after the old man had entered, and before he had struck his light.

The Rector knocked softly. With visible perturbation, and in a sharp tone of selfdefence, the Italian called out in very good French to know who was there. Dr. Serrano was a patriot and a plotter, and used to domiciliary visitations. Lionel answered him in English, asked if he were Dr. Serrano, and announced himself as a friend of Charles Atheling. Then the door opened slowly and with some jealousy. Lionel passed into the room without waiting for an invitation. "You are going to England on a matter of the greatest importance," said the Rector, with excitement to restore the son of your friend to his inheritance; yet I find you, with the serpent at your car, listening to Lord Winterbourne."

The Italian started back in amaze. "Are you the devil?" said Doctor Serrano, with a comical perturbation.

"No; instead of that, you have just left him," said Lionel; "but I am a friend, and know all. This man persuades you not to go on-by accident I caught the sound of his voice saying so. He has the most direct personal interest in the case; it is ruin and disgrace to him. Your testimony may be of the greatest importance-why do you linger? why do you listen to him?"

Really, you are hot-headed; it is so with youth," said Dr. Serrano, "when we will move heaven and earth for one friend. He tells me the child is dead-that this is another. I know not-it may be true."

another hour within reach of Lord Winterbourne ?"

The Italian shrugged his shoulders. "I will break with him; he is ever false," said the old man. "What besides can I do?"

"I will tell you said Lionel. "The boat sails in an hour-come with me at once, let me see you safe in England. I shall attend to your comfort with all my power. There is time for a good English bed at Dover, and an undisturbed rest. Doctor Serrano, for the sake of the oppressed, and because you are a philosopher, and understand the weakness of human nature, will you come with me?"

The Italian glanced lovingly at the couch which invited him-at the slippers and the pipe which waited to make him comfortable -then he glanced up at the dark and resolute countenance of Lionel, who, high in his chivalric honor, was determined rather to sleep at Serrano's door all night than to let him out of his hands. "Excellent young man! you are not a philosopher! "' said the rueful doctor; but he had a quick eye, and was accustomed to judge men. "I will go with you," he added seriously, "and some time, for liberty and Italy, you will do as much for me.'

too

It was a bargain, concluded on the spot. An hour after almost within sight of Lord Winterbourne, who was pacing the gloomy pier by night in his own gloom of guilty thought, the old man and the young man It is not true," said Lionel. "I will embarked for England. A few hours later tell you who I am-the next heir if Lord the little Italian slept under an English roof, Winterbourne is the true holder of the title and the young Englishman looked up at the there is my card. I have the strongest in- dizzy cliff, and down at the foaming sea, terest in resisting this claim if I did not much excited to think of rest. The next know it to be true. It can be proved that morning Lionel carried off his prize to Lonthis is the same boy who was brought from don, and left him in the hands of Charlie Italy an infant. I can prove it myself; it Atheling. Then, seeing no one, speaking is known to a whole village. If you choose to no one, without lingering an hour in his it, confront me with Lord Winterbourne." native country, he turned back and went "No; I believe you-you are a gentle-away. He had made up his mind now to man," said Doctor Serrano, turning over the remain at Calais till the matter was entirely card in his hand-and the old man added decided-then to resign his benefice-and with enthusiasm," and a hero for a friend!" then, with things and not thoughts around "You believe me?" said Lionel, who him in the actual press and contact of comcould not restrain the painful smile which mon life, to read, if he could, the grand crossed his face at the idea of his heroism in secret of a true existence, and decide his the cause of Louis. "Will you stay then fate.

CHAPTER XXXI.-THE TRIAL.

He

LORD WINTERBOURNE had been in Italy, found the courier Monte, whom he himself going over the ground which Charlie Athe- had established in his little mountain-inn. ling had examined so carefully. Miss Anas- Monte was a faithful servant enough to his tasia's proverb was coming true. He who employer of the time, but he was not scrupuall his life had been so wary, began to calcu- lous, and had no great conscience. late madly, with an insane disregard of all undertook, without much objection, for the the damning facts against him, on overturn- hire which Lord Winterbourne gave him, to ing, by one bold stroke, the careful fabric of say any thing Lord Winterbourne pleased. the young lawyer. He sought out and He had been present at the marriage; and