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their verdict. They found him guilty of the
charge of manslaughter, without the excuse
of insanity. He was brought up again, and
condemned to transportation for life. All he
did on hearing the sentence was to reiterate
his desperate words, Hang me before I do
more harm! Hang me, for God's sake, out
of the way!
June 20th. I made yesterday's entry in
sadness of heart, and I have not been better
in my spirits to-day. It is something to
have brought the murderer to the punishment
that he deserves. But the knowledge that
this most righteous act of retribution is ac-
complished, brings no consolation with it.
The law does indeed punish Noah Truscott
for his crime; but can it raise up Mary Mal-
linson from her last resting-place in the church-
yard?

only news I have had of her I found in the newspaper report of the trial yesterday."

He still spoke calmly, but there was something in the look of his eyes which showed me that he was suffering in spirit. A sudden nervousness overcame me, and I was obliged to sit down.

"You knew Mary Mallinson, sir?" I asked, as quietly as I could.

"I am her brother."

I clasped my hands and hid my face in despair! O! the bitterness of heart with which I heard him say those simple words! "You were very kind to her,” said the calm, tearless man. "In her name and for

her sake, I thank you."

"O! sir," I said, "why did you never write to her when you were in foreign parts?

"I wrote often," he answered, "but each of my letters contained a remittance of Did Mary tell you she had a stepIf she did, you may guess why

While writing of the law, I ought to record that the heartless wretch who allowed Mary to be struck down in his presence with-money. out making any attempt to defend her, is not mother? likely to escape with perfect impunity. The none of my letters were allowed to reach policeman who looked after him to insure his attendance at the trial, discovered that he had committed past offences, for which the law can make him answer. A summons was executed upon him, and he was taken before the magistrate the moment he left the court after giving his evidence.

I had just written these few lines, and was closing my journal, when there came a knock at the door. I answered it, thinking Robert had called in his way home to say good-night, and found myself face to face with a strange gentleman, who immediately asked for Anne Rodway. On hearing that I was the person inquired for, he requested five minutes' conversation with me. I showed him into the little empty room at the back of the house, and waited, rather surprised and fluttered, to hear what he had to say.

He was a dark man, with a serious manner, and a short stern way of speaking. I was certain that he was a stranger, and yet there seemed something in his face not unfamiliar to me. He began by taking a newspaper from his pocket, and asking me if I was the person who had given evidence at the trial of Noah Truscott on a charge of manslaughter. I answered immediately that I was.

her. I now know that this woman robbed my sister. Has she lied in telling me that she was never informed of Mary's place of abode?"

I remembered that Mary had never communicated with her step-mother after the separation, and could therefore assure him that the woman had spoken the truth.

He paused for a moment, after that, and sighed. Then he took out a pocket-book and said:

"I have already arranged for the payment of any legal expenses that may have been incurred by the trial; but I have still to reimburse you for the funeral charges which you so generously defrayed. Excuse my speaking bluntly on this subject; I am accustomed to look on all matters where money is concerned purely as matters of business."

I saw that he was taking several banknotes out of the pocket-book, and stopped him.

"I will gratefully receive back the little money I actually paid, sir, because I am not well off, and it would be an ungracious act of pride in me to refuse it from you," I said. "But I see you handling bank-notes, any

'I have been for nearly two years in Lon-one of which is far beyond the amount you don seeking Mary Mallinson, and always have to repay me. Pray put them back, sir. seeking her in vain," he said. "The first and What I did for your poor lost sister, I did

from my love and fondness for her. You difficulty or distress (which, I pray God, you

have thanked me for that; and your thanks are all I can receive."

He had hitherto concealed his feelings, but I saw them now begin to get the better of him. His eyes softened, and he took my hand and squeezed it hard. "I beg your pardon," he said. your pardon with all my heart."

"I beg

There was silence between us, for I was crying; and I believe, at heart, he was crying too. At last, he dropped my hand, and seemed to change back, by an effort, to his former calmness.

may never be), apply to my London agent, whose address you have there." He stopped, and looked at me attentively- then took my hand again. 'Where is she buried?" he said suddenly, in a quick whisper, turning his head away.

I told him, and added that we had made the grave as beautiful as we could with grass and flowers.

I saw his lips whiten and tremble. "God bless and reward you!" he said, and drew me towards him quickly and kissed my forehead. I was quite over"Is there no one belonging to you to whom come, and sank down and hid my face on I can be of service?" he asked. "I see the table. When I looked up again he was among the witnesses on the trial the name gone. of a young man who appears to have assisted you in the inquiries which led to the prisoner's conviction. Is he a relation? "No, sir- at least, not now hope

"What?"

June 25th, 1841.-I write these lines on my wedding morning, when little more than but I a year has passed since Robert returned to England.

"I hope that he may, one day, be the nearest and dearest relation to me that a woman can have." I said those words boldly, because I was afraid of his otherwise taking some wrong view of the connection between Robert and me.

"One day?" he repeated. "One day may be a long time hence."

"We are neither of us well off, sir," I said. "One day, means the day when we are a little richer than we are now."

"Is the young man'educated? Can he produce testimonials to his character? Oblige me by writing his name and address down on the back of that card."

When I had obeyed, in a handwriting which I am afraid did me no credit, he took out another card, and gave it to me.

I shall leave England to-morrow," he "There is nothing now to keep me in my own country. If you are ever in any

His salary was increased yesterday to one hundred and fifty pounds a-year. If I only knew where Mr. Mallinson was, I would write and tell him of our present happiness. But for the situation which his kindness procured for Robert, we might still have been waiting vainly for the day that has now come.

I am to work at home for the future, and Sally is to help us in our new abode. Mary could have lived to see this day! I am not ungrateful for my blessings; but O, how I miss that sweet face, on this morning of all others!

I got up to-day early enough to go alone to the grave, and to gather the nosegay that now lies before me from the flowers that grow round it. I shall put it in my bosom when Robert comes to fetch me to the church. Mary would have been my bridesmaid if she had lived; and I can't forget Mary, even on my wedding-day.

In the warm church to build him up a tomb:
Since Spenser hath a stone; and Drayton's
brows

Stand petrefied in the wall, with laurel boughs
Yet girt about, and nigh wise Henry's herse
Old Chaucer got a marble for his verse.
So courteous is Death; Death poets brings
So high a pomp to lodge them with their
kings.' - Habington.

A PASTORAL HYMN TO THE FAIRIES.

From The Examiner.

one of the most picturesque old houses of a Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. By picturesque old country town. Sudbury the late George William Fulcher. Edited then lived by the wool trade, and Gainsby his Son. Longman and Co. borough's father, "a fine old man, who wore MODEST as are the dimensions of this little his hair carefully parted, and was remarkabook, it yet tells more of the life of Gains- ble for the whiteness and regularity of his borough than has hitherto been known. It teeth," was a woolspinner, a tolerably thrivis at first sight remarkable that one of the ing man, who introduced as a secret and most famous artists of the English school, special department into his own workrooms living at a period when memoir writers and the manufacture of shrouds, then carried on recorders of small talk were plentiful, having chiefly at Coventry. He was a regular ata wide circle of clever friends, and known as tendant at the Independent chapel in his a gay companion, should die at the age of town, and although ready to put a keg of sixty-two, and leave behind him only the smuggled brandy in his cart when the occamost scanty records for the use of a biogra- sion served, was really an honest man, who pher. The reason may be, that, his rise in might have been much richer than he was the world being rapid and uninterrupted, had he adopted, with the spinners in his emthere was nothing in Gainsborough's career ploy, and with his customers, the sharp practo cause men to inquire below the surface of tice sanctioned by the usages of his especial his obvious and merited good fortune. All trade. Gainsborough's mother was a woman went well with him from first to last; and of well-cultivated mind, who excelled in although no artist ever was more clearly born flower painting. Her brother was a clergyto his career, or lived more truly that life of man of the Church of England, and heada man of genius which displays every-day master of the grammer school at Sudbury. features of unusual significance and interest, It would be interesting to know more about yet there were few about him who took note these parents, for they transmitted to several of his real character. The great world saw of their children special qualities. in him little except the fashionable portrait were five sons and four daughters. painter; while with literary men he had not daughters all married; and of the five sons, much sympathy or intercourse, the artists thee at least were men of a rare genius; of out of his own calling, in whose company he the remaining two, one was killed by an actook most pleasure, being the leading actors cident in his boyhood, and of the other little and musicians. is recorded. The three who were born with peculiar instincts were John, Humphry, and the painter Thomas.

There

The

The life of Gainsborough now published, short as it is, has been the opus magnum, the opus unice dilectum, of its writer, an inhabiMechanical ingenuity was remarkable in tant of Gainsborough's native town of Sud- all, in John a passion. He made an attempt bury, his schoolfellow in boyhood, afterwards to fly, he invented a mechanical cuckoo which always an admirer of his genius. Mr. Ful- would sing all the year round, and a wheel cher seems to have gathered notes from every that turned in a still bucket of water. He trustworthy source. He applied for help to made a time-keeper that nearly won the reall the surviving relatives and friends of the ward of twenty thousand pounds offered by artist, and he incorporated in his little nar- the Act 12th Anne 1714, and did obtain a rative every fact he found it possible to as- reward of public money. He laid out, tocertain. A year ago, however, he died, leav-wards the close of his life, every stray pound ing his work not yet perfectly complete. His he could compass upon brass work for an inson has instituted new inquiries, finished the strument to discover the longitude; as an old book, and issued it to the public in its present form, adorned pleasantly with little views of the places of Gainsborough's birth, death, and burial, and with a very pretty picture by his deceased nephew, illustrative of his first attempt at portrait painting.

Thomas Gainsborough was born at Sudbury one hundred and thirty years ago, in

man he would draw diagrams with his stick upon the floor by the hour together; and after he died, his house at Sudbury was found to be nearly filled with brass and tin models of every shape and form, most of them in an unfinished state. John seldom finished what he took in hand. That was the check upon his worldly success. Some little thing

1

was wrong, ," he used to say when he | aside those ideas which pleased him when on
failed; "if I had but gone on with it I am paper, and throwing the rest under the table.
sure I should have succeeded, but a new He was a prompt worker, and few artists
scheme came across me." So he was called, have produced more rapidly or given away so
by the Sudbury people, Scheming Jack. much work, as Gainsborough one might
John Gainsborough had some skill as a almost say thoughtlessly-distributed among
painter.
his friends.

Humphry became a dissenting minister, Of course an artist thus endowed was a
pious and indefatigable, but he too was born boy painter. There was not a tree or post
a mechanist. His leisure was spent in me- near Sudbury having a trace of beauty in it
chanical inventions; and after his death it that had not fixed his attention in boyhood.
was necessary to maintain his house and to He sketched and sketched, and his first por-
retain his servants, that no whisper might trait was the face of a mysterious orchard
escape of the large model of a steam-engine plunderer, who happened to peer over the
contained in it, embodying Humphry's orig- hedge while he, having risen early, was at
inal inventions, until full inquiry had been work on the landscape in a little summer
made into its value. It is asserted by the house. The portrait proclaimed who was the
family that Humphry Gainsborough was the thief.
author of one of Watt's improvements, the His bent being so obvious, at the age of
way of condensing the steam in a separate fifteen Thomas Gainsborough was sent to
vessel; and that the idea was carried to Watt London, where he studied under Hayman,
by a strange person, evidently acquainted then a man in high repute as a historical
with mechanics, who applied to Humphry painter. After three years' study he took
Gainsborough for leave to see his working rooms in Hatton Garden, and began as a
model. There is in the British Museum a landscape and portrait painter, also as modeller
sun-dial, capable of showing time distinctly
to one minute, without the assistance of
wheel-work, and having the name of its in-
ventor, Humphry Gainsborough, inscribed
upon it.

Thomas Gainsborough had a like tendency, and his mechanical skill was not spent merely in his art as a painter, which is in one sense a mechanical art of extreme delicacy. He took a peculiar delight in modelling, and when in the zenith of his fame would break a piece of wax from one of the candles near him, and in a quarter of an hour model a friend's head with it so perfectly, that the likeness seemed to be as true and accurate a work of art as any other of his portraits. He painted also two moonlight scenes with mechanical effects; and showed not only his true painter's instinct by drawing always from nature, and even fetching into his house branches and twigs enough to make a decent wood-stack, but his mechanical taste showed itself in a habit he had of often building a landscape which he meant to paint, with bits of looking-glass for water, bits of coal for rock, and so forth, minute models in clay representing men or cattle. His instinct as a painter, too, possessed him forcibly. He spent his evenings at home by his wife's side, rapidly designing sketch after sketch, putting

The

of clay figures, on his own account.
first year's failure admonished him to pack up
and return to Sudbury. There he lost little
time in marrying a beautiful girl whose por-
trait he had taken, and with whom he was
naturally brought into association, she being
the sister of a commercial traveller in the em-
ployment of his father. Miss Margaret Burr
had from a mysterious source it is said be-
cause she was natural daughter of the Duke
of Bedford - two hundred pounds a year.
With this to fall back upon, Thomas Gains-

ough and his wife Margaret, respectively at the ages of nineteen and eighteen, began life in a six-pound house at Ipswich, where he made quick progress as a painter of the faces and the houses of the gentry of the place and its vicinity. While the young couple were at Ipswich, Mr. Thicknesse, a vain man with an ill-regulated mind, but not without power to be helpful, was appointed the Lieutenant-Governor of Landguard Fort. He had a house at Bath, and lived there in the winter months; and that young Gainsborough should try his powers in that home of fashion was the advice of Thicknesse to his clever friend. Gainsborough took the advice and made his fortune. As a portrait painter at Bath his price rose rapidly with his fame, from three and five guineas to fifty and a