The chastened glory of a bright autumnal evening was shining upon the yellow harvest fields of Bursley Farm, in the vicinity of the New Forest, and tinting with changeful light the dense but broken masses of thick wood which skirted the southern horizon, when Ephraim Lovegrove, a care-cankered, worn-out dying man, though hardly numbering sixty years, was, at his constantly and peevishly-iterated request, lifted from the bed on which for many weeks he had been gradually and painfully wasting away, and carried in an arm-chair to the door. From the cottage, situated as it was upon an eminence, the low-lying lands of Bursley, and its straggling homestead, which once called him master, could be distinctly seen. The fading eyes of the old man wandered slowly over the gleaming landscape, and a faint smile of painful recognition stole upon his harsh and shriveled features. His only son, a fine handsome young fellow, stood silently, with his wife, beside him—both, it seemed, as keenly, though not, perhaps, as bitterly, impressed with the scene and the thoughts it suggested; and their child, a rosy youngster of about five years of age, clung tightly to his mother's gown, frightened and awed apparently by the stern expression he read upon his father's face. A light summer air lifted the old man's thin white locks, fanned his sallow cheeks, and momently revived his fainting spirit. "Ay," he muttered, "the old pleasant home, Ned, quiet, beautiful as ever. It's only we who change and pass away."

"The home," rejoined the son, "of which we have been robbed—lawfully robbed."

"I'm not so clear on that as I was," said Ephraim Lovegrove, slowly and with difficulty. "It was partly our own want of foresight—mine, I mean, of course: we ought not to have calculated on—"

The old man's broken accents stopped suddenly. The strength which the sight of his former home and the grateful breeze which swept up from the valley awakened, had quickly faded; and the daughter-in-law, touching her husband's arm, and glancing anxiously at his father's changing countenance, motioned that he should be re-conveyed to bed. This was done, and a few spoonfuls of wine revived him somewhat. Edward Lovegrove left the cottage upon some necessary business; and his wife, after putting her child to bed, re-entered the sick-room, and seated herself with mute watchfulness by the bedside of her father-in-law.

"Ye are a kind, gentle creature, Mary," said the dying man, whose failing gaze had been for some time fixed upon her pale, patient face; "as kind and gentle—more so, it seems to me, in this poor hovel, than when we dwelt in yon homestead, from which you, with us, have been so cruelly driven."

"Murmuring, father," she replied, in a low, sweet voice, "would not help us. It is surely better to submit cheerfully to a hard lot, than to chafe and fret one's life away at what can not be helped. But it's easy for me," she hastily added, fearing that her words might sound reproachfully in the old man's ear—"it's easy for me, who have health, a kind husband, and my little boy left me, to be cheerful, but it is scarcely so for you, suffering in body and mind, and tormented in a thousand ways."

"Ay, girl, it has been a sharp trial; but it will soon be over. In a few hours it will matter little whether old Ephraim Lovegrove lived and died in a pig-sty or a palace. But I would speak of you. You and Ned should emigrate. There are countries, I am told, where you would be sure to prosper. That viper Nichols, I remember, once offered to assist—I could never make out from what motive—from what—A little wine," he added feebly. "The evening, for the time of the year, is very chilly: my feet and legs are cold as stones." He swallowed the wine, and again addressed himself to speak, but his voice was scarcely audible. "I have often thought," he murmured, "as I lay here, that Symons, Nichols's clerk, from a hint he dropped, knows something of—of—your mother and—and—" The faint accents ceased to be audible; but the grasp of the dying man closed tightly upon the frightened woman's hand, as he looked wildly in her face as he drew her toward him, as if some important statement remained untold. He struggled desperately for utterance, but the strife was vain, and brief as it was fierce: his grasp relaxed, and with a convulsive groan, Ephraim Lovegrove fell back and expired.

The storm which had made shipwreck of the fortunes of Ephraim Lovegrove had leveled with the earth prouder roof-trees than his. In early life he had succeeded his father as the tenant of a farm in Wiltshire. He was industrious, careful, and ambitious; and aided by the sum of £500, which he received with his wife, and the high prices which agricultural produce obtained during the French war, he was enabled, at the expiration of his lease in Wiltshire, to become the proprietor of Bursley Farm. This purchase was effected when wheat ranged from £30 to £40 a load, at a proportionately exorbitant price of £5000. His savings amounted to about one half of this sum, and the remainder was raised by way of mortgage. Matters went on smoothly enough till the peace of 1815, and the subsequent precipitate fall in prices. Lovegrove showed gallant fight, hoping against hope that exceptional legislation would ultimately bolster up prices to something like their former level. He was deceived. Every day saw him sinking lower and lower; and in the sixth year of peace he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the long since desperate and hopeless struggle with adverse fortune. The interest on the borrowed money had fallen considerably in arrear, and Bursley Farm was sold by auction at a barely sufficient sum to cover the mortgage and accumulated interest. The stock was similarly disposed of, and stout Ephraim withdrew with his family to a small cottage in the neighborhood of his old home, possessed, after his debts were discharged, of about thirty pounds in money and a few necessary articles of furniture. The old man's heart was broken: he took almost immediately to his bed, and after a long agony of physical pain, aggravated and embittered by mental disquietude and discontent, expired, as we have seen, worn out in mind and body.

The future of the surviving family was a dark and anxious one. Edward Lovegrove, a frank, kindly-tempered young man, accustomed, in the golden days of farming, to ride occasionally after the hounds, as well equipped and mounted as any in the field, was little fitted for a struggle for daily bread with the crowded competition of the world. He had several times endeavored to obtain a situation as bailiff, but others more fortunate, perhaps better qualified, filled up every vacancy that offered, and the almost desperate man, but for the pleading helplessness of his wife and child, would have sought shelter in the ranks of the army—that grave in which so many withered prospects and broken hopes lie buried. As usual with disappointed men, his mind dwelt with daily-augmenting bitterness upon the persons at whose hands the last and decisive blows which had destroyed his home had been received. Sandars the mortgagee he looked upon as a monster of perfidy and injustice; but especially Nichols the attorney, who had superintended and directed the sale of the Bursley homestead, was regarded by him with the bitterest dislike. Other causes gave intensity to this vindictive feeling. The son of the attorney, Arthur Nichols, a wild, dissipated young man, had been a competitor for the hand of Mary Clarke, the sole child of Widow Clarke, and now Edward Lovegrove's wife. It was not at all remarkable or surprising that young Nichols should admire and seek to wed pretty and gentle Mary Clarke, but it was deemed strange by those who knew his father's grasping, mercenary disposition, that he should have been so eager for the match, well knowing, as he did, for the payments passed through his hands, that the widow's modest annuity terminated with her life. It was also known, and wonderingly commented upon, that the attorney was himself an anxious suitor for the widow's hand up to the day of her sudden and unexpected decease, which occurred about three years after her daughter's marriage with Edward Lovegrove. Immediately after this event, as if some restraint upon his pent-up malevolence had been removed, the elder Nichols manifested the most active hostility toward the Lovegroves; and to his persevering enmity it was generally attributed that Mr. Sandars had availed himself of the power of sale inserted in the mortgage deed, to cast his unfortunate debtor helpless and homeless upon the world.

Sadly passed away the weary, darkening days with the young couple after the old man's death. The expenses of his long illness had swept away the little money saved from the wreck of the farm; and it required the sacrifice of Edward's watch and some silver teaspoons to defray the cost of a decent funeral. At last, spite of the thriftiest economy, all was gone, and they were penniless.

"You have nothing to purchase breakfast with to-morrow, have you, Mary?" said the husband, after partaking of a scanty tea. The mother had feigned only to eat: little Edward, whose curly head was lying in her lap as he sat asleep on a low stool beside her, had her share.

"Not a farthing," she replied, mildly, even cheerfully, and the glance of her gentle eyes was hopeful and kind as ever. "But, bear up, Edward: we have still the furniture; and were that sold at once, it would enable us to reach London, where, you know, so many people have made fortunes, who arrived there as poor as we."

"Something must be done, that is certain," replied the husband. "We have not yet received an answer from Salisbury about the porter's place I have applied for."

"No; but I would rather, for your sake, Edward, that you filled such a situation at some place further off, where you were not so well known."

Edward Lovegrove sighed, and, presently, rising from his chair, walked toward a chest of drawers that stood at the further end of the room. His wife, who guessed his intention—for the matter had been already more than once hinted at—followed him with a tearful, apprehensive glance. Her husband played tolerably well—wonderfully in the wife's opinion—upon the flute, and a few weeks after their marriage, her mother had purchased and presented him with a very handsome one with silver keys. He used, in the old time, to accompany his wife in the simple ballads she sang so sweetly—and now this last memorial of the past, linked as it was with tender and pious memories, must be parted with! Edward Lovegrove had not looked at it for months: his life, of late so out of tune, would have made harsh discord of its music; and as he took it from the case, and, from the mere force of habit, moistened the joints, and placed the pieces together, a flood of bitterness swelled his heart to think that this solace of "lang syne" must be sacrificed to their hard necessities. He blew a few tremulous and imperfect notes, which awakened the little boy, who was immediately clamorous that mammy should sing, and daddy play, as they used to do.

"Shall we try, Mary," said the husband, "to please the child?" Poor Mary bowed her head: her heart was too full to speak. The flutist played the prelude to a favorite air several times over, before his wife could sufficiently command her voice to commence the song, and she had not reached the end of the second line when she stopped, choked with emotion, and burst into an agony of tears.

"It is useless trying, Mary," said Edward Lovegrove, soothingly, as he rose and put by the flute. "I will to bed at once, for to and from Christchurch, where I must dispose of it, is a long walk." He kissed his wife and child, and went up-stairs. The mother followed soon afterward, put her boy to rest, and after looking wistfully for a few moments at the worn and haggard features of her husband as he lay asleep, re-descended the stairs, and busied herself with some necessary household work.

As she was thus employed, a slight tap at the little back window struck her ear, and, looking sharply round, she recognized the pale, uncouth features of Symons, lawyer Nichols' deformed clerk and errand-man, who was eagerly beckoning her to open the casement. This was the person of whom Ephraim Lovegrove had spoken just previous to his death. Symons, who had never known father or mother, had passed his infancy and early boyhood in the parish workhouse, from whence he had passed into the service of Mr. Nichols, who, finding him useful, and of some capacity, had retained him in his employ to the present time, but at so bare a stipend, as hardly sufficed to keep body and soul together. Poor Symons was a meek, enduring drudge, used to the mocks and buffets of the world; and except under the influence of strong excitement, hardly dared to rebel or murmur, even in spirit. His acquaintance with the Lovegrove family arose from his being placed in possession of the furniture and stock of Bursley Farm, under a writ of fi. fa. issued by Nichols. On the day the inventory was taken, in preparation for the sale, a heavy piece of timber, which he was assisting to measure, fell upon his left foot, and severely crushed it. From his master he received only a malediction for his awkwardness; but young Mrs. Lovegrove—not so much absorbed in her own grief as to be indifferent to the sufferings of others—had him brought carefully into the house, and herself tended his painful hurt with the gentlest care and compassion, and ultimately effected a thorough cure. This kindness to a slighted, deformed being, who, before, had scarcely comprehended the meaning of the word, powerfully effected Symons; and he had since frequently endeavored, in his shy, awkward way, to testify the deep gratitude he felt toward his benefactress, of whose present extreme poverty he, in common with every other inhabitant of the scattered hamlet, had, of course, become fully cognizant. Charity Symons—the parish authorities had so named him, in order, doubtless that however high he might eventually rise in the world, he should never ungratefully forget his origin—beckoned, as I have said, eagerly to the lone woman, and the instant she opened the casement, he thrust a rather heavy bag into her hand.

"For you," he said, hurriedly: "I got it for next to nothing of Tom Stares; but mind, not a word! God bless and reward you!" and before Mrs. Lovegrove could answer a word, or comprehend what was meant, he had disappeared.

On opening the bag, the surprised and affrighted woman found that it contained a fine hen-pheasant and a hare! No wonder she was alarmed at finding herself in possession of such articles; for in those good old days game could not be lawfully sold or purchased; and unless it could be distinctly proved that it came by gift from a qualified killer, its simple possession was a punishable offense. This pheasant and hare had doubtless been poached by Tom Stares, a notorious offender against the game-laws; but what was to be done? Spite of all the laws that were enacted upon the subject, the peasant and farmer intellect of England could never be made to attach a moral delinquency to the unauthorized killing of game. A dangerous occupation, leading to no possible good, and, eventually, sure to result in evil to the transgressor, prudent men agreed it was; but as for confounding the stealing of a wooden spoon, worth a penny, with the snaring of a hare, worth, perhaps, five shillings—that never entered any body's head. And thus it happened that Mrs. Lovegrove, though conscious that the hare and bird had been illegally obtained, felt nothing of the instinctive horror and shame that would have mantled her forehead, had she been made the recipient of a stolen threepenny-worth of cheese or bacon. She recalled to mind the journey her husband must take in the morning—he, weak, haggard for want of food—of which here was an abundant present supply: her boy, too, who had twice at tea-time, ere he fell asleep, asked vainly for more bread! As these bitter thoughts glanced through her brain, a sharp double rap at the door caused her to start like a guilty thing, and then hastily undo her apron, and throw it over the betraying present. The door was not locked, and the postman, impatient of delay, lifted the latch, and stepped into the room. Was he soon enough to observe what was on the table? Mary Lovegrove would have thought so, but for the unconcerned, indifferent aspect of the man as he presented a letter, and said, "It's prepaid: all right;" and without further remark, went away. The anxious and nervous woman trembled so much, that she could hardly break the seal of the letter; and the words, as she strove to make out the cramped hand by the brilliant moonlight, danced confusedly before her eyes. At last she was able to read. The letter was from Salisbury and announced that Mr. Brodie "regretted to say, as he had known and respected the late Ephraim Lovegrove, that he had engaged a person to fill the situation which had been vacant, a few hours previous to his receiving Edward Lovegrove's application." That plank, then, had sunk under them like all the rest! A hard world, she thought, and but little entitled to obedience or respect from the wretches trampled down in its iron course. Edward should not, at all events, depart foodless on his morning's errand; neither should her boy lack breakfast. On this she was now determined, and with shaking hands and flushed cheek, she hastily set about preparing the bird for the morning meal—a weak and criminal act, if you will; but a mother seldom reasons when her child lacks food: she only feels.

Edward Lovegrove very easily reconciled himself to the savory breakfast which awaited him in the morning; and he and his son were doing ample justice to it—the wife, though faint with hunger, could not touch a morsel—when the latch of the door suddenly lifted, and in hurried Thompson the miller, and chief constable of the Hundred, followed by an assistant. A faint scream escaped from Mrs. Lovegrove, and a fierce oath broke from her husband's lips, as they recognized the new-comers, and too readily divined their errand.

"A charming breakfast, upon my word!" exclaimed the constable, laughing. "Roasted pheasant—no less! Our information was quite correct, it appears."

"What is the meaning of this, and what do you seek here?" exclaimed Edward Lovegrove.

"You and this game, of which we are informed you are unlawfully possessed. I hope," added the constable, a feeling, good sort of man—"I hope you will be able to prove both this half-eaten pheasant and the hare I see hanging yonder were presented to you by some person having a right to make such gifts?"

A painful and embarrassing pause ensued. It would have been useless, as far as themselves were concerned, to have named Charity Symons, even had Lovegrove or his wife been disposed to subject him to the penalties of the law and the anger of his employer.

"After all," observed the constable, who saw how matters stood, "it is but a money penalty."

"A money penalty!" exclaimed Lovegrove. "It is imprisonment—ruin—starvation for my wife and child. Look at these bare walls—these threadbare garments—and say if it can mean any thing else!"

"I am sorry for it," rejoined Thompson. "The penalty is a considerable one: five pounds for each head of game, with costs; and I am afraid, if Sir John Devereux's agent—lawyer Nichols—presses the charge, in default of payment, six months' imprisonment! Sir John's preserves have suffered greatly of late."

"It is that rascal, that robber Nichols' doing then!" fiercely exclaimed Lovegrove. "I might have guessed so; but if I don't pay him off both for old and new one of these days—"

"Tut—tut!" interrupted the constable: "it's no use calling names, nor uttering threats we don't mean to perform. Perhaps matters may turn out better than you think. In the mean time you must appear before Squire Digby, and so must your hare and what remains of your breakfast."

Arrived before the magistrate, the prisoner, taken in "flagrant dÉlit," had of course no valid defense to offer. The justice remarked upon the enormity of the offense committed, and regretted, exceedingly that he could not at once convict and punish the delinquent; but as the statute required that two magistrates should concur in the conviction, the case would be adjourned till that day week, when a petty sessions would be held. In the mean time he should require bail in ten pounds for the prisoner's appearance. This would have been tantamount to a sentence of immediate imprisonment, had not the constable, who had been formerly intimate with the Lovegroves, stepped forward and said, that if the prisoner would give him his word that he would not abscond, he would bail him. This was done, and the necessary formalities complete, the husband and wife took their sad way homeward.

What was now to be done? Their furniture, if sold at its highest value, would barely discharge the penalties incurred, and they would be homeless, penniless, utterly without resource? The wife wept bitterly, accusing herself as the cause of this utter ruin; her husband indulged in fierce and senseless abuse of Nichols, and in a paroxysm of fury seized a sheet of letter-paper, tore it hastily in halves, and scribbled a letter to the attorney full of threats of the direst vengeance. This crazy epistle he signed 'A Ruined Man,' and without pausing to reflect on what he was doing, dispatched his little boy to the post-office with it. This mad proceeding appeared to have somewhat relieved him: he grew calmer, strove to console his wife, went out and obtained credit at the chandler's—the first time they had made such a request—for a few necessaries; and after a short interval, the unfortunate couple were once more discussing their sad prospects with calmness and partially-renewed hope. More than once Edward Lovegrove wished he had not sent the letter to Nichols; but he said nothing to his wife about it, and she, it afterward appeared, had been so pre-occupied at the time, as not to heed or inquire to whom or of what he was writing.

On the third day after Edward Lovegrove's appearance before the magistrate, he set off about noon for Christchurch, in order to dispose of his flute—a sacrifice which could no longer be delayed. It was growing late, and his wife was sitting up in impatient expectation of his return, when an alarm of "Fire" was raised, and it was announced that a wheat-rick belonging to Nichols, who farmed in a small way, was in flames. Many of the villagers hastened to the spot; but the fire, by the time they arrived, had been effectually got under, and after hanging about the premises a short time, they turned homeward. Edward Lovegrove joined a party of them, and incidently remarked that he had been to Christchurch, where he had met young Nichols, and had some rough words with him: on his return, the young man had passed him on horseback when about two miles distant from the elder Nichols' house, and just as he (Lovegrove) neared the attorney's premises, the rick burst into flames. This relation elicited very little remark at the time, and bidding his companion good-night, Lovegrove hastened home.

"The constables are looking for you," said a young woman, abruptly entering the chandler's shop, whither Edward Lovegrove had proceeded the following morning to discharge the trifling debt he had incurred.

"For me?" exclaimed the startled young man.

"Yes, for you;" and, added the girl with a meaning look and whisper, "if you were near the fire last night, I would advise you to make yourself scarce for a time."

Her words conveyed no definite meaning to Edward Lovegrove's mind. The fire! Constables after him! He left the shop, and took with hasty steps, his way to the cottage, distant over the fields about a quarter of a mile.

"Lawyer Nichols' fire," he muttered as he hurried along. "Surely they do not mean to accuse me of that!"

The sudden recollection of the threatening letter he had sent glanced across and smote, as with the stroke of a dagger, upon his brain. "Good God! to what have I exposed myself?"

His agitation was excessive; and at the instant the constables, who had been to his home in search of him, turned the corner of a path, a few paces ahead, and came full upon him. In his confusion and terror he turned to flee, but so weakly and irresolutely, that he was almost immediately overtaken and secured.

"I would not have believed this of you, Edward Lovegrove," exclaimed the constable.

"Believed what?" ejaculated the bewildered man.

"That you would have tried to revenge yourself on Lawyer Nichols by such a base, dastardly trick. But it's not my business to reproach you, and the less you say the better. Come along."

As they passed on toward the magistrate's house, an eager and curious crowd gradually collected and accompanied them; and just as they reached Digby Hall, a distant convulsive scream, and his name frantically pronounced by a voice which the prisoner but too well recognized, told him that his wife had heard of his capture, and was hurrying to join him. He drew back, but his captors urged him impatiently on; the hall-door was slammed in the faces of the crowd, and he found himself in the presence of the magistrate and the elder Nichols.

The attorney, who appeared to be strongly agitated, deposed in substance that the prisoner had been seen by his son near his premises a few minutes before the fire burst out; that he had abused and assaulted young Mr. Nichols but a few hours previously in the market at Christchurch; and that he had himself received a threatening letter, which he now produced, only two days before, and which he believed to be in the prisoner's handwriting—

The prisoner, bewildered by terror, eagerly denied that he wrote the letter.

This unfortunate denial was easily disposed of, by the production, by the constable, of a half sheet of letter-paper found in the cottage, the ragged edge of which precisely fitted that of the letter. Edward Lovegrove would have been fully committed at once, but that the magistrate thought it desirable that the deposition of Arthur Nichols should be first formally taken. This course was reluctantly acquiesced in by the prosecutor, and the prisoner was remanded to the next day.

The dismay of Charity Symons, when he found that his well-intentioned present had only brought additional suffering upon the Lovegroves, was intense and bitter; but how to help them, he knew not. He had half made up his mind to obtain—no matter by what means—a sight of certain papers which he had long dimly suspected would make strange revelations upon matters affecting Mary Lovegrove, when the arrest of her husband on a charge of incendiarism thoroughly determined him to risk the expedient he had long hesitatingly contemplated. The charge, he was quite satisfied in his own mind, was an atrocious fabrication, strongly as circumstances seemed to color and confirm it.

The clerk, as he sat that afternoon in the office silently pursuing his ill-paid drudgery, noticed that his employer was strangely ill at ease. He was restless, and savagely impatient of the slightest delay on the most necessary question. Evening fell early—it was now near the end of October, and Symons with a respectful bow, left the office. A few minutes afterward, the attorney having carefully locked his desk, iron chest, &c., and placed the keys in his pocket, followed.

Two hours had elapsed, when Symons re-entered the house by the back way, walked through the kitchen, softly ascended the stairs, and groped his way to the inner, private office. There was no moon, and he dared not light a candle; but the faint starlight fortunately enabled him to move about without stumbling or noise. He mounted the office steps, and inserted the edge of a sharp broad chisel between the lock and the lid of a heavy iron-bound box marked 'C.' The ease and suddenness with which the lid yielded to the powerful effort he applied to it, overthrew his balance, and he with difficulty saved himself from falling on the floor. The box was not locked, and on putting his hand into it, he discovered that it was entirely empty! The tell-tale papers had been removed, probably destroyed! At the moment Symons made this exasperating discovery, the sound of approaching footsteps struck upon his startled senses, and shaking with fright, he had barely time to descend the steps, and coop himself up in a narrow cupboard under one of the desks, when the Nicholses, father and son, entered the office—the former with a candle in his hand.

"We are private here," said the father in a low, guarded voice; "and I tell you you must listen to reason.

"I don't like it a bit," rejoined the young man. "It's a cowardly, treacherous business; and as for swearing I saw him near the fire when it so strangely burst out, I won't do it at any price."

"Listen to me, you foolish, headstrong boy," retorted the elder Nichols, "before you decide on beggary for yourself, and ruin—the gallows, perhaps, for me."

"Wh-e-e-e-w! Why, what do you mean?"

"I will tell you. You already know that Mary Woodhouse married Robert Clarke against his uncle's consent; you also know that Robert Clarke died about five years after the marriage, and that the seventy pounds a year which the uncle allowed his nephew to keep him from starvation was continued to be paid through me to his widow."

"Yes, I have heard all this before."

"But you do not know," continued the attorney in an increasingly-agitated voice, "that about six years after Robert Clarke's death, the uncle so far relented toward the widow and daughter—though he would never see either of them—as to increase the annuity to two hundred pounds, and that at his death, four years since, he bequeathed Mrs. Clarke five hundred pounds per annum, with succession to her daughter: all of which sums, I, partly on account of your riot and extravagance, have appropriated."

"Good heaven, what a horrible affair! What would you have me do?"

"I have told you. The dread of discovery has destroyed my health, and poisoned my existence. Were he once out of the country, his wife would doubtless follow him; detection would be difficult; conviction, as I will manage it, impossible."

There was more said to the same effect; and the son, at the close of a long and troubled colloquy, departed, after promising to "consider of it."

He had been gone but a few minutes; the elder Nichols was silently meditating the perilous position in which he had placed himself, when a noiseless step approached him from behind, and a heavy hand was suddenly placed upon his shoulder. He started wildly to his feet, and confronted the stern and triumphant glance of the once humble and submissive Charity Symons. The suddenness of the shock overcame him, and he fainted.

Mary Lovegrove, whose child had sobbed itself to sleep, was sitting in solitude and darkness in the lower room of the cottage, her head bowed in mute and tearless agony upon the table, when, as on a previous evening, a tap at the back window challenged her attention. It was once more Charity Symons. "What do you here again?" exclaimed the wretched wife with some asperity of tone: "you no doubt intended well; but you have nevertheless ruined, destroyed me."

"Not so," rejoined the deformed clerk, his pale, uncouth, but expressive features gleaming with wild exultation in the clear starlight. "God has at last enabled me to requite your kindness to a contemned outcast. Fear not for to-morrow. Your husband is safe, and you are rich." With these words he vanished.

On the next morning a letter was placed in the magistrate's hands from Mr. Nichols, stating that circumstances had come to the writer's knowledge which convinced him that Edward Lovegrove was entirely innocent of the offense imputed to him; that the letter, which he had destroyed, bore quite another meaning from that which he had first attributed to it; and that he consequently abandoned the prosecution. On further inquiry, it was found that the attorney had left his house late the preceding night, accompanied by his son, had walked to Christchurch, and from thence set off post for London. His property and the winding up of his affairs had been legally confided to his late clerk. Under these circumstances the prisoner was of course immediately discharged; and after a private interview with Symons, returned in joy and gladness to his now temporary home. He was accompanied by the noisy felicitations of his neighbors, to whom his liberation and sudden accession to a considerable fortune had become at the same moment known. As he held his passionately-weeping wife in his arms, and gazed with grateful emotion in her tearful but rejoicing eyes, he whispered, "That kind act of yours toward the despised hunchback has saved me, and enriched our child. 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!'"

[From Dickens's Household Words.]