trusting, grateful; true to each other always, and to Him who kept them so.

But ever in the midst of all this, and throughout every season and condition of life, wherever their eyes might wander, whatever their thoughts might mingle with, active or meditative, in society or in solitude, the one fresh, subtle, conscious feeling, held undiminished empire over both hearts. There, amidst all, was the undying recollection; there in every change was the settled grief that had grown to be sweeter and dearer than happiness. At distant intervals of time, perhaps, a name, or some bygone event, would raise a fonder remembrance, accompanied by a few tender words, respecting their matchless boy; and then they would again be composed. The thought of him seemed to "let down the golden chain from high," and draw them towards him and heaven.

But of the lost portrait they never spoke. Whether it was that some undefined but superstitious apprehension mingled with their feelings of regret; whether it was reluctance to pain each other by a useless recurrence to a loss so irreparable, or to a circumstance so mysterious; but their lips never once opened upon that sad, strange, and frequently intruding subject.

Several years had passed, ten or eleven, and each succeeding one glided more smoothly away, obliterating not a line of the deep and dear recollection, but making each clearer and more enduring. When, one morning as they sat together, the father and mother, conversing upon common careless things, the usual household topics; with every object in its ordinary place around them, and no novel sight or sound to startle the mind out of its track, or disturb the habits of long years; suddenly, instantaneously there was a movement in the father's brain, a quickened beating of the heart, and a

sense of the necessity of giving utterance to a thought which had never found voice or expression before. It would not be controlled, and in a moment it broke the spell of years of silence, and escaped in words.

Taking his companion's hand, he said, abruptly, with a strange and somewhat wild air, in tones too that were strange.

"My beloved, how mysterious was the disappearance of that picture which has cost us both so many speechless pangs, so many fond and vain regrets! Reading each other's inmost thoughts, thus have we both reflected through long years, you and I; and what prompts me now to put the thought in words, I cannot tell !"

He said this like a child: he did not know why he spoke he could not help it.

The mother raised his hand devoutly to her lips. Affected and surprised by his words, she sought fearingly in his countenance for some sign that his spirit was unusually troubled. But his brow was calm. "The thought," she said, affectionately, "would have been less supportable if we had not felt and known how continually it was shared. Silence lulled it. It was hushed and well borne. But to hear it mentioned now at a far distant day, to find its existence certified by speech, and speech of yours, startles me as with the idea of something new; instead of the old, familiar, and not painful inmate of my spirit. What can have so moved you to-day to break the quiet compact which our souls so long since ratified ?"

But this, as before, he was unable to tell. An impulse momentarily stirred in him, and in the glow and flutter of it he had spoken. They then, for the first time since the event, conversed upon the subject of their mysterious loss, giving expression to all their feelings, and their conviction that they had not displaced the portrait

themselves; comparing their sentiments respecting the inmates of the house at the time, the uninjured state of the drawer, which had been found locked, and all the strange, confounding circumstances of the case. All this discussed in placid conversation, as it had been in thought a thousand and a thousand times before, they both agreed that their useless wonder was now to express itself in words for the last time; and that with wonder, regret and anguish were also to be banished. They possessed a truer image of the lost one than art could render, and they blessed God.

An hour after, that father sat down in perfect composure to his writing-desk. It was an old friend, and had seen brighter days. At the side of it was a drawer of some depth, which he frequently opened to take out a particular seal that he required; but it opened easily only a little way, just sufficient to admit the hand. This, however, was enough, and as it had stuck fast apparently with age, no effort had ever been made to draw it out. But it so happened on this occasion that the seal had fallen, as it had never done before, into a cavity at the back of the desk, and it was now necessary to pull the drawer further out. In working it backward and forward to effect this, a short black ribbon presently became visible, and then more of it; and, now, the drawer being by a stronger effort forced completely out

Powers of wonder! of delight and awe! what words shall give expression to the instantaneous and irresistible force with which ye seized upon the awakened and ravished soul of the gazer! The picture was there! the lost treasure was found!

That very drawer he had opened times out of number; his hand had been within it almost daily for years; yes, close to the now-recovered prize! the tangled

ribbon of which, set fast between the drawer's edge and the desk, at once prevented a further opening and held the miniature at the back. How flashed now upon the father's recollection that he had taken it, eleven years before, in his wretchedness and agony, from the old cabinet to his own desk, and thrust it hastily into that drawer, as some intruder came to witness the tears that were streaming over it. How wonderful was all this!

Where now was the mother's composure, when, entering, she beheld her husband's delighted, yet misbelieving looks! When she thought how often the light was actually penetrating the drawer, while its precious contents were still buried in darkness! When she remembered how very near the blind hand been to it hundreds of times! When she recollected above all, that this loss, which two hearts had so lamented, had never been the subject of one whisper between them for eleven years, until that very morn, just an hour before! The allusion to it, so sudden, strange, and final; the discovery so unexpected and momentary!

But how was all this forgotten by both, as they gazed together on the unfaded and expressive colours before them, picturing features almost as radiant and noble as the angel-face, which, with the gifted eyes of faith, they never failed to see, when they searched the heavens for it.

STOPPING, the other day, to admire, and also to moralise upon, that splendid Gothic edifice, with all its extensive and beautiful appurtenances, St. George's Catholic Church, which has lately risen, a striking monument of catholic spirit, on the Surrey side of the broken-backed bridge at Westminster, on a spot ingloriously known as St. George's-fields, the eye naturally wandered to the several other objects of interest congregated around it. Charity, it would appear, had made that once bare and melancholy district her head-quarters, her favourite home, her best cultivated domain.

In that region, acre after acre of ground is covered with buildings, some magnificent, others simple but befitting their object, erected for purposes of benevolence, dedicated to the noblest uses, maintained with unsparing liberality. Distinguished above all is Bethlehem Hospital, with its additional wings and well-kept grounds. At a distance, about equal to the space which the splendid hospital occupies, stands the Asylum for Female Orphans. Adjoining the grounds of Bethlehem, is the Refuge for the Houseless; opposite, stands the excellent Philanthropic Institution; at the corner, stretching from one road to another, along a frontage of considerable extent, is the beautiful new school for the indigent Blind; facing one wing of that elegant