'Edward! what would you have me to do? Deep as my love for you is—and I blush not to confess it—would you have me to fly with you accompanied by the tears of blighted reputation—followed by the groans and lamentations of a heart-broken father—pointed at by the finger of the world as an outcast of human frailty? Would you have me to break the last cord that binds to existence the only being to whom I am related on earth—for whom have I but my father? My hand I shall never give to another; but I cannot, I will not leave my father's house. If Catherine Forrester has gained your love, she shall not forfeit your esteem. I may droop in secret, Edward, as a bud broken on its stem, but I will not be trampled on in public as a worthless weed.'

'Nay, my beloved, mistake me not,' returned I—'when the lamb has changed natures with the wolf, then, but not till then, could I breathe a thought, a word in your presence, that I would blush to utter at the gate of Heaven. Within two days, your father and his intended son-in-law will return, and the father's threats and tears will subdue the daughter's purpose. Catherine will be a wife!—Edward a——

'Speak not impiously,' she cried, imploringly—'what—what can we do?'

'The present moment only is left us,' replied I. 'To-night, become the wife of Edward Fleming, and happiness will be ours.'

Her pulse stood still; the blood rushed into her face and back to her heart, while her bosom heaved, and her cheeks glowed with the agony of incertitude, as she resolved and re-resolved.

But wherefore should I tire you with a recital of what you already know. That night, my Catherine became my wife. For a few months her father disowned us; but when the fortunes of the Prince began to ripen, through his instrumentality we were again received into his favour. Yet I was grieved to hear, that, in consequence of our marriage, Sir Peter Blakely's mind had become affected; for, while I detested him as a rival, I was compelled to esteem him as a man.

But now, Lewis, comes the misery of my story. You are aware that, before I saw my Catherine, I was a ruined man. Youthful indiscretions—but why call them indiscretions?—rather let me say my headlong sins—before I had well attained the age of manhood, contributed to undermine my estate, and the unhappy political contest in which we were engaged had wrecked it still more. I had ventured all that my follies had left me upon the fortunes of Prince Charles. You know that I bought arms, I kept men ready for the field, I made voyages to France, I assisted others in their distress; and, in doing all this, I anticipated nothing less than an earldom, when the Stuarts should again sit on the throne of their fathers. You had more sagacity, more of this world's wisdom; and you told me I was wrong—that I was involving myself in a labyrinth from which I might never escape. But I thought myself wiser than you. I knew the loyalty and the integrity of my own actions, and with me, at all times, to feel was to act. I had dragged ruin around me, indulging in a vague dream of hope; and now I had obtained the hand of my Catherine, and I had not the courage to inform her that she had wed that of a ruined man.

It was when you and I were at the University together, that the spirit of gambling threw its deceitful net around me, and my estate was sunk to half its value ere I was of age to enjoy it; the other half I had wrecked in idle schemes for the restoration of the Stuarts. When, therefore, a few weeks after our marriage, I removed with my Catherine to London, I was a beggar, a bankrupt, living in fashionable misery. I became a universal borrower, making new creditors to pacify the clamours of the old, and to hide from my wife the wretchedness of which I had made her a partner. And, O Lewis! the thought that she should discover our poverty, was to me a perpetual agony. It came over the fondest throbbings of my soul like the echo of a funeral bell, for ever pealing its sepulchral boom through the music of bridal joy. I cared not for suffering as it might affect myself; but I could not behold her suffer, and suffer for my sake. I heard words of tenderness fall from her tongue, in accents sweeter than the melody of the lark's evening song, as it chirming descends to fold its wings for the night by the side of its anxious mate. I beheld her smiling to beguile my care, and fondly watching every expression of my countenance, as a mother watches over her sick child; and the half-concealed tear following the smile when her efforts proved unavailing; and my heart smote me that she should weep for me, while her tears, her smiles, and her tenderness, added to my anguish, and I was unable to say in my heart, 'Be comforted.' It could not be affection which made me desirous of concealing our situation from her, but a weakness which makes us unwilling to appear before each other as we really are.

For twelve months I concealed, or thought that I had concealed, the bankruptcy which overwhelmed me as a helmless vessel on a tempestuous sea. But the Prince landed in Scotland, and the war began. I was employed in preparing the way for him in England, and, for a season, wild hopes, that made my brain giddy, rendered me forgetful of the misery that had hung over and haunted me. But the brilliant and desperate game was soon over; our cause was lost, and with it my hopes perished; remorse entered my breast, and I trembled in the grasp of ruin. Sir William Forrester effected his escape to France, but his estates were confiscated, and my Catherine was robbed of the inheritance that would have descended to her. With this came another pang, more bitter than the loss of her father's fortune; for he, now a fugitive in a strange land, and unconscious of my condition, had a right to expect assistance from me. The thought dried up my very heart's blood, and made it burn within me—and I fancied I heard my Catherine soliciting me to extend the means of life to her father, which I was no longer able to bestow upon herself: for, with the ruin of our cause, my schemes of borrowing, and of allaying the clamour of creditors, perished.

But it is said that evils come not singly—nor did they so with me; they came as a legion, each more cruel than that which preceded it. Within three weeks after the confiscation of the estates of Sir William Forrester, the individual who held the mortgage upon mine died, and his property passed into the hands—of whom?—heaven and earth! Lewis, I can hardly write it. His property, including the mortgage on my estate, passed into the hands of—Sir Peter Blakely! I could have died a thousand deaths rather than have listened to the tidings. My estate was sunk beyond its value, and now I was at the mercy of the man I had injured—of him I hated. I could not doubt but that, now that I was in his power, he would wring from me his 'pound o' flesh' to the last grain—and he has done it!—the monster has done it! But to proceed with my history.

My Catherine was now a mother, and longer to conceal from her the wretchedness that surrounded us, and was now ready to overwhelm us, was impossible; yet I lacked the courage, the manliness to acquaint her with it, or prepare her for the coming storm.

But she had penetrated my soul—she had read our condition; and, while I sat by her side buried in gloom, and my soul groaning in agony, she took my hand in hers, and said—

'Come, dear Edward, conceal nothing from me. If I cannot remove your sorrows, let me share them. I have borne much, but, for you, I can bear more.'

'What mean ye, Catherine?' I inquired, in a tone of petulance.

'My dear husband,' replied she, with her wonted affection, 'think not I am ignorant of the sorrow that preys upon your heart. But brood not on poverty as an affliction. You may regain affluence, or you may not; it can neither add to nor diminish my happiness but as it affects you. Only smile upon me, and I will welcome penury. Why think of degradation or of suffering? Nothing is degrading that