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tinued rolling over the building-growing more appalling as its echoes grew fainter, and its sounds diminished, until they likened the groaning away of the human spirit. More than one start and shudder and scream did it awaken in the chamber; but none screamed like the dying man. He still remained in convulsive hysterics; his shrieks, shrill and loud at first, seemed to exhaust themselves-growing fainter and fainter, until they died away in a sort of gurgle, which brought the white foam to the sufferer's lips. Then it frothed for a moment, and its bubbles burst and disappeared; and at the same time the pulse stopped in his heart; and the sense left his spirit; and light was extinguished in the prisoner's brain. His wife stood there a lonely widow, while his children were left orphans to the protection of the Lord.

When the room was cleared of its idle guests, and the poor woman who had long been prepared for her husband's death, although not for its coming in so awful a form, had in some measure regained her composure, I inquired of her why she had charged herself with being the cause of the prisoner's last strong fit.

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Oh, sir," she replied, "it was very unfortunate, and quite furtherest from my heart to think he would have been so strangely affected; but you know, sir, he said he had had a dream, and it seemed to hang upon his mind. so when you left the room with the docther, I just asked him what it was, and he told me. Ellen, dear.' said he, I dreamt that old Wentworth Stokes was not dead, but that he had come home from the seas and'-"My own dream, William; my very own dream last night!" said I hastily; " and then the loud clap of thunder came; and my poor husband, who was, like all sailors, supertitious, took it, I think, as some fearful confirmation of his vision-for he started, and shrieked, and fell into those wild dreadful hysterics, which took him out of the world."

The poor woman's tears flowed afresh; and I left her for a time, telling her that I would return in an hour or two-first bidding her pray to God, according to the dictates of her own heart and conscience, to calm for her the troubled waters of affliction, and enable her to support her trials!

I then sent the nurse from the Prison Infirmary, to pay the requisite attentions to the dead, directing her to leave the room as soon as she had performed her sad duty. I deemed it well that the sacred sorrows of the widow and the orphan's first tears of mourning should be suffered to flow undisturbed. Still was my curiosity unsatisfied as to the cause of the prisoner's hysteric shock, and it had been little enlightened by the dream that" Old Wentworth Stokes had come home from over the seas." The mystery enveloped in this sentence was afterwards cleared up; and I shall unfold to the reader in the following narrative.

The father of Ellen Maurice (the widow's maiden name) had been many years back a clothes-salesman in a respectable way of business in Dublin; and much of his trade consisted in the outfit of sailors leaving or coming into port. He was a widower, and Ellen being his only child, he did not suffer her to be much away from him. In young girlhood she used to play about the shop; and when she began to ripen into the woman, it was part of her occupation to wait behind the counter. Old Maurice was doubtless fond of her, so far as his

notions of affection went; but he was by nature a fierce, harsh man, and his daughter lived more in fear of him than love.

But young warm spirits do not long endure loneliness of heart; there is a well of sympathy in the human soul, that in youth does not remain long unstirred; feelings, fresh and early, spring up in the fervour and and loveliness of affection ;-feelings

"that bind

The plain community of guileless hearts

In love and union"

Ellen Maurice could not love her father as she longed to love, but she soon felt that she must love somebody. She could not endure to live, and think, and feel, in the selfishness of the heart's solitude. Moreover, she was not without opportunities of choice, if in truth she had not been rather fastidious.

Many a joyful and jolly tar would buy a jacket or a neckcloth at her father's shop, for the sake of being served and smiled upon by Ellen; but then a common sailor was below her in station, and as yet none of them had made what is called "an impression," But by. and-by her heart had to undergo a regular course of siege from the attacks made upon it, not by a common sailor, but by William Moystyn, the handsome and good-tempered mate of one of the government transports in the bay. He was of good courage too, and he reduced the fortress so, that yoor Ellen yielded at, or rather without, discretion. And so William Moystyn and Ellen Maurice were now fairly betrothed to one another by their own promises, and in their own hearts; but the poor girl feared her father too much to ask his consent, and their innocent wooing was carried on in secret. At last troops were ordered for embarkation on board the transport, and the vessel herself was put under sailing orders for the West Indies. William sailed in her, having first bought his outfit of Ellen, and promised to return a captain, and ask her father's consent to their marriage. And in this I suppose there would have been no difficulty; old Maurice would have allowed his daughter to marry a captain, but he would have been enraged at the thought of her being in love with a mate. Ellen could not see the wisdom of this. And so Ellen continued her love -though somewhat in sorrow on-account of the absence of its object; a sort of memory of fondness once indulged; flowers of affection which it was the duty of constancy to keep in bloom.

"Dai bei rami scendea, Dolce ne la memoria"

Soon after Moystyn's departure, an accession of fortune accrued to Ellen and her parent. A relative in England had died and left between father and daughter a neat independent income; whereupon the pride of old Maurice became mightily raised, and he sold off all his old clothes, packed up his traps, and, with characteristic patriotism, left his country the moment he found himself in a condition to live comfortably in it. Away he started in the first steamer, without bothering himself to bid good-bye to his friends; and having passed the ordeal of a rough sea and a longish journey through Holyhead, &c. (every Irishman knows the route), he found himself, one fine evening, just in time

to dine, with his daughter at the Swan-with-two-Necks, in Lad-lane.

Once in London, old Maurice set himself down in peace, as he said, to enjoy his prosperity; and, having nothing else to do, he thought of busying himself in finding a husband for Ellen whom he now considered an heiress. The first requisite for his daughter's spouse, in his idea, would be money--the next, a sociable power of companionship; in short, a person who had wherewith to pay for his grog—the will to drink—the wit to relish it in conversation with old Maurice.

Maurice had brought with him an introduction to a person who was to him described as a "respectable merchant," residing in the borough of Southwark, and by name Mr. Wentworth Stokes. This Mr. Wentworth Stokes was a gentleman who might have said to his forty-ninth year what Kennedy the poet said to the year 1833.

"Thou art gone, old year, to thy fathers,
In the stormy time of snow,"

It was near Christmas, and Mr Stokes was fifty! So much for his age: in other respects he was such a man as Maurice wanted for his daughter. He said he had money; he proved he had a pleasant, plausible tongue; and all that Christmas he drank gin-and-water with old Maurice during the long evenings. Poor Ellen! as her heart was not much engaged in these proceedings, I have not forced her to make a frequent personal appearance; but when New Year's-day came, she was united in the bands of matrimony to Mr. Wentworth Stokes, in St. George's church, in the Borough first, and afterwards by a priest of her own religion.

Almost immediately after her marriage her father died; and Mr. Wentworth Stokes, having at his disposal the property both of parent and child, and being, as before described "a respectable merchant,” immediately applied it to the purpose of freighting a ship to the West Indies, of which he determined to be supercargo himself. Either there must have been something wrong in Mr. Stokes' character, or else a merchant of fifty feels less compunction in leaving a newly-married bride than would a young high-born gentleman. Certain it is, that as soon as he had engaged an active and intelligent captain to take charge of his vessel, he conveyed Mrs. Stokes to Herne Bay, and having procured her a first floor in a row of houses facing the sea, bade her farewell, and proceeded to Gravesend, there to embark on board his own ship for a tropic clime.

Strangely indeed runs the currant of human destiny. Poor Ellen was now alone in the world; left as no other young and attractive child of nature was ever, perhaps, forsaken in her experience before. She felt no grief for her husband's absence; her heart was too often artlessly-and as she believed, almost innocently -wandering after her early love but she found herself desolate-a flower with no shelter from the storm a reed that might be shaken in the wind.

For the first few days after her husband's departure, she whiled away her time in watching, from the window of her apartment, the vessels that were continually passing the bay. It was an occupation that more than any other filled her mind with thoughts in which she ought not to have indulged, but it seemed thrown in her way, and she could not resist. Often it awakened tears for the love and memory of a being for whom

they should no longer have dared to flow. One morning. after a fitful night, in which poor Ellen's dreams had been hardly less stormy than the bellowing waves that ever and anon awakened her as they dashed under the windows, the lonely and unhappy girl approached her casement and gazed upon the ocean hefore her raging like an angry lion, with a sudden and mysterious foreboding that those turbulent billows had been working out a passage in her destiny, and were by some wild agency commingled with her future fate. As she cast her eye over the waters, all unstilled as they tossed and ever bristling with their white foam, she saw numerous vestiges of wreck, and knew that more than one noble fabric of human industry had been shattered, and that many lives must have been lost. One vessel had been within sight totally wrecked, and boats of such as dared venture were now putting off with a view of rendering assistance while there was yet a chance But with the exception of one person who had been brought on shore, all the crew of that vessel had perished. Ellen's curiosity now prompted her to inquire the name of the ship that had been so totally destroyed. The answer was, it was the "ELLEN;" all the crew were drowned along with the owner; the captain was the only person saved,—he was at the- But Ellen did not hear the rest her wild delirious sensations had overpowered her, and she had fainted away. Her presentiment was surely fulfilled" she was a widow!" As soon as they had recovered her, she sent for the captain of her husband's ship, who was at the neigh bouring inn, and who, on learning that she was the owner's wife, immediately attended her summons. A few minutes and his knock was heard at the door: a strange foreboding tremor pervaded her frame as he ascended the stairs. The door opened-Ellen raised her eyes, and started to see before her the figure of WILLIAM MOYSTYN!

*

William Moystyn and Ellen had been married some years, meeting with occasional reverses, but indusWilliam triously working their way through the world. was religiously inclined, and a man of much faith in the mercy of his Redeemer-what he suffered, he endured patiently-wheu he was blessed, he returned his blessing unto God. He lived happily, though sometimes hardly, with his wife; and he rejoiced in the affections of a parent for his children. He was of that very numerous English class of "poor but honest." Ellen's property was all gone-gone with her former worthless husband (for it turned out he was worthless) and his ship and Moystyn had nothing but what he earned. One day at the end of a hard quarter he was arrested— he could not tell for what; he did not even know by whom. On the back of the writ upon which he was taken was the name of Miller, but he knew nobody of that name. The attorney who had issued the writ was not to be found, and, as far as that action went, Moystyn to the day of his death never discovered who was the plaintiff. It took him, however, in the first instance, to Horsemonger-lane gaol, and as soon as he could get money enough he moved upon it to the King's Bench When there, one prison, through the form of a habeas.

or two fresh suits were commenced against him by real creditors; detainers were sent down, and he became sadly embarrassed. Long time he tried to battle against misfortune; but, after his furniture was

sold, and his wife and family were turned into the streets, he almost despaired in his penniless condition, and gave himself up for lost. Ellen-fate persecuted as she was-joined him with her children in his gaol, and there they subsisted upon a sum of five shillings per week, allowed Moystyn from some seaman's society, three and sixpence of county-money, and whatever little pittance his wife and his eldest daughter could earn by their needle. The family, however, suffered a great deal from illness: the prison at one time became full, and they had to pay five shillings per week to a chum; and at last their indigence and destitution became excessive and miserable. Moystyn could never raise money enough to go through the Insolvent Court, and his imprisonment dragged on year after year, wasting his constitution and consuming his frame, so that Ellen, who nursed him with affection to the last, might truly be said to have joined him in a prison like an angel of kind comfort to tend him on his journey to the grave. How he died it was my fate sorrowfully to witness; but the denouement to Ellen's history did not transpire till the next day.

The day after my last visit to him, Moystyn was carried out in a coffin. Poor fellow death has released him from his creditors. An inquest was held upon his body, as is customary when men die in prison. The jury in such cases invariably consists of prisoners, some of them taken from inside the walls, others chosen from the rules. On the melancholy occasion in question I was called in to give evidence, and to witness, as it turned out, one of the strangest and most terror-stricking events that ever occurred, perhaps, within the charmed pale of coincidence. In the course of the inquiry, I detailed to the jury the leading features of the story I have just narrated, and it commanded the most earnest attention from all present. When I had concluded it, with the sad portrayal of the scene in the deceased's where I administered the sacrament to him the evening before, there was a momentary silence-a stillness the effect of mingled sympathy, excitement, and surprise. It was broken by the fail of one of the jury from his chair in a fit of paralysis. He was an old man, and had attended from the rules.

"He had better be taken home," said the coroner. "Who knows were he lives?"

"I know who he is," said one of the turnkeys; "but I must look in the book to see where he lives." He turned into the lobby and brought the book back. "John Miller, alias Wentworth Stokes, Melinaplace."

"Wentworth Stokes!" cried the whole room in astonishment. "Wentworth Stokes !" shrieked Ellen (who had been dismissed after her evidence, but was then standing in the lobby), "where, where ?—let me see." And, as they pointed to the door, she rushed in, and identified the body of her first husband!

our dreams

"Poor William! then," exclaimed she " are both fulfilled. He had, indeed, come over from the seas! But how he had come-or whence-or in what manner he had escaped from the wreck of his vessel, still remains untold, for Wentworth Stokes never spoke again.

It appeared that he had been for some years a prisoner in the rules under his right name John Miller, living upon a small income which he had preferred remaining in prison to giving up; and this (when facts

were stated) his creditors, instead of dividing among themselves, generously consented to assign the hapless Ellen and orphan family. It will keep them from a recurrence of the poverty they have so long patiently endured.

UNAMBITIOUS LOVE.

"Do I not feel a burning glow
Steal o'er my cheek when he appears!
Do not his parting words bestow

A secret pang too deep for tears?
Have not the dreams, which Love endears
Each calmer joy and hope removed?"—
Oh! no-my griefs, my doubts, my fears,
Alone have vanished since I loved,-
Since, like the dove of peace, content
Was to my troubled bosom sent.

He leaves me, yet I weep not ;-no !
I court no cause for fruitless pain ;
True as the light of day, I know

That he will come to me again,
And months may pass,-nay years,—in vain,
Before our bridal torch shall burn;
And would you have me still complain,

And mar with tears his loved return?
Nay! dearest, nay !-calm, patient love,
Nor grief should tire, nor absence move.

Mark you beneath yon hill's gray brow
A fringe of ancient elms? "Tis there
He dwells. And when I gaze, as now,
I gather from the summer air
Tidings of him, and promise fair

Of days when that dear home will hold
Each breathing thing that moves my care
In one secure and sacred fold!
Say, then, should wayward melancholy
Mingle with hopes so sweet, so holy?

I know, that from the hour I kneel
Before the altar, never more

The world's gay splendours will reveal
For me the charm which once they wore,
No glittering garb must mantle o'er
My wedded heart,- no pearly string,-
No garland round my brows, restore
The faded treasures of the spring;
He boasts that woman's loveliness
Shows fairest in its matron dress!

What then?-the crowd, the wreathing dance'
The mimic scene, the festal song
Denied,-joy dwells in lonelier haunts,
And shuns, like him, the prating throng.
And still, our native vales among,
Together we shall range the woods,
And in sweet faucy commune long
With mountains vast and foaming floods;
Finding, while hand in hand we go,
A brighter Eden spread below.

You mock my homely joys ?-smile on!
I cannot dream beneath the skies
A brighter scene,-a happier one,-
Than the dear home which you despise.
And think, what sweeter hopes will rise
When children hang around my knee,
And tears spring up into his eyes

As he enfolds his babes and me
In one long, close embrace,-that blends
The love of" country, home and friends.”

Together, throngh our infant bloom, Through life's meridian lustre, thrown,Through age's lingering years of gloom, May neither cling to earth, alone!

His kin are kindred to my own,

His joys below, his hopes of heaven, Are mine ;-and when to mercy's throne We kneel, in trust to be forgiven, May the Almighty Judge deeree For us one bright eteruity!

THE OLD VALENTINE.

"You have been a long time reading that letter," said Mrs. Brooks to her niece; "I hope it is an in. teresting one."

"It is not a letter, dear aunt, it a valentine, and I have been trying to guess who sent it."

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Why, who should it be but young Fleming? he did nothing but talk of valentines all last week," "And that makes me think it did not come fom him ; who else can it be?"

A ring at the door sent the valentine into the writing. desk; the door opened, and in came two bright, laughing girls.

"Oh, Sophia," exclaimed Ellen Douglas, a young girl, just entering life or evening parties-" look here, see what a sweet valentine, and cousin Anna has three, only think of that! Did you get one? Ah, I can tell by your blush that there is a valentine in that desk."

"Let me see yours first, and then I will tell you," said Sophia; "three have you, Anna? where are they? here are two only-give me that one first, it is so prettily cut."

Sophia opened it eagerly, and could not help smiling, for it was one she had written herself for Ralph Fleming-she opened the other, it was hers, likewise, and lo! Ellen's valentine was from the same pen.

We

"They are all beautifully cut and beautifully painted," said she;" the verses are like all these kind of verses, full of love, and all that, but we do not care for the rhyme nor for the design, you know, it is the pleasant feeling that these little bits of paper give one. think of the gentleman-the one gentlaman-hey, Ellen?-who would so naturally send a valentine. Anna, dear, why did you not bring the other valentine? I have more curiosity about that one than either of these."

"Tell her, Anna, tell her all about it," said Ellen, looking concerned, for poor Anna had a cloud over her fine face.

"There is nothing to tell, Sophia, excepting that uncle came into the room with the valentines himself, and after allowing us to read them, he begged that he might look at the handwriting. Like a simpleton I handed him these two very eagerly, and kept back the third, but he insisted on seeing that too, and so, although I had scarcely read it, I was forced to give it up. Only think of his seeing such a valentine as that-"

Mrs. Brooks, who had left the room when the girls entered, now came in to ask for Sophia's bunch of keys, as she had mislaid her own.

"Let her open the desk first," said Ellen Douglas, we want to see her valentine."

But Mrs. Brooks was in haste; she promised, however, to send the keys back immediately, and the girls were compelled to wait. Ten minutes-fifteen elapsed, and they chatted on, but no keys came: Sophia went

after them, and came back with the intelligence that her aunt had gone out, and it was presumed had taken the keys with her, for they were not to be found. After wondering and wondering over and over again who could have sent the valentines, they departed, vexed that they could not get a peep at the one so provokingly locked up in the desk.

Sophia breathed freely as her two friends left the room: not for worlds would she have shown the precious valentine, for the handwriting was well-known to both of the girls. How she blessed her aunt for getting her off so handsomely about the keys; although she thought it must have been accidental, for how could it be imagined that there would be any unwillingness on her part to show the paper.

The gentlemen suspected of having sent the valentine, was the last person that any gay, fashionable young lady would care to receive one from. He was Mrs. Brook's "man of business," for so she termed him, although he transacted all her offices gratuitously. He was a Mr. Samuel Day, no name certainly for a romance; and what was worse, he had no romance in his nature. How so refined, accomplished, and beautiful a girl as Sophia Lee could admire, nay love, a man with such an unprepossessing name, and so little brilliancy of character, it is impossible to conjecture. If he had won her affections by flattery, or by any of the numerous arts in the power of a designing man, it would not have been surprising; but Mr. Day practised none of these; he had not the most remote thought of loving Sophia Lee, loveable as she was: nor did he dream that she ever could think of him as a lover.

He walked into the parlour with Mrs. Brooks, just as the young ladies left it. Sophia blushed deeply as her eye met his, and he cast a second glance—a glance of surprise at the emotion. Mrs. Brooks apologised for not returning the keys in time to let the ladies see the valentine, but she remarked that another day would do as well; and at any rate,,' said she," Sophia you can let Mr Day see it. He came in on purpose; I met him in the street, and asked him to come in and see it."

"I suspect-I imagine-" stammered Sophia, "Mr. Day has no desire-no-"

"If you are averse to my seeing it," said Mr. Day, But who is "I certainly can have no wish to do so. the happy valentine this year, my dear Sophia ?" "That is more than she can tell," said Mrs. Brooks, "for I heard her wondering who it could be."

Mr. Day smiled then looked queer; for he saw that Sophia was unusually agitated.

"I presume that these valentines have some charm in them-something very pleasant," said he, "for I have heard of them even in my counting-house. Ralph Fleming this morning," and he turned his eye from "told Sophia as he mentioned the young man's name, me that he had sent at least half-a-dozen to different ladies."

Sophia smiled, for well she knew who had wrote them all. As to the one she had received herself, there was no mistaking the author, there was no doubting that the hand-writing was Mr, Day's; and yet he looked so easy, so unconscious-he was so little given to mysteries that she could not understand it.

Mr Day was more at ease when he found that the sending valentines to several other ladies had not pro

duced any unpleasant feeling. If she did not think it was sent by Ralph Fleming, who else, thought he, did she suppose would send her a valentine? A Colonel Gardiner came across his mind, and it was now his turn to blush and look embarrassed.

"That Colonel Gardiner is a sorry fellow," said he turning to Mrs. Brooks, "his servant has just sued him for a year's wages. I met a gentleman yesterday who was engaged to dine with him, but on hearing of this suit, he sent an apology."

"I honour the man who has courage to do a thing like that," said Sophia-and Mr. Day turned quickly towards ber." It is not Colonel Gardiner then,"

thought he. There were but three other gentlemen intimate in the house, Mr. Jones, brother to Anna Jones, the lady who had just left them, Mr. Western, and a Mr. Marshall. It was Mr. Western who had sent an apology to Colonel Gardiner, and the suspicion would have rested on him, only that he was thought to be an admirer of Anna Jones-he was divided between Mr. Marshall and Mr. Jones

"What ails you both this morning?" said Mrs. Brooks, 66 'you are stammering and hesitating, and looking as if you had been doing something wrong: perhaps after all, Mr. Day, you sent the valentine yourself."

"I send a valentine-I do a silly thing like that! no, madam," said he, raising his voice so as to make Sophia start, 66 never. But I beg your pardon for speaking so earnestly I never expected that a foolish valentine could have the power of making me behave like a boy. If Sophia would but let me see it I might relieve her curiosity; perhaps the handwriting is known to me-surely, my dear girl, unless it contains an offer of marriage, there can be no impropriety in showing it to a man almost old enough to be your father."

Sophia had shown so much embarrassment and so much had been said about the foolish paper that she felt extremely awkard, and could not bring herself to open the desk. "No, no," said she, after making one or two attempts, " not now, I will just wait till I see Ralph Fleming-perhaps he can throw some light on it."

"Well, if he is further in your confidence than I am -but he is younger and—”

"Oh, no, no, do not say that.

You are entitled to all my confidence, but the person I first suspected of having sent the paper is certainly not the one, and Mr. Fleming perhaps he imitated the handwriting-at any rate I will examine it again."

"Well, see him then, dear young lady, I am content now it does not come from Colonel Gardiner or Mr. Fleming. I saw by your countenance that you suspect neither of them."

"You saw by my countenance ?-did you not turn your face from mine when you mentioned their names? so how could you see? Be assured that I should not have felt the embarrasment that I now feel, if either of these persons had sent me a hundred valentines."

"In the name of goodness, whom did you suspect?" said Mr Day, looking more surprised than he had ever done in his life.

Before Sophia could answer, Mr. Fleming came in, and Mr. Day walked abruptly away.

Sophia unlocked the desk, took out the valentine, and laying it on the table said, "Mr. Fleming, you

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No, I could not bring myself to shew it to him; indeed Mr. Fleming there is some mystery about this ; when did he write it? it must have been lately, for here is 1837, and yet-stay-1 declare there has been an erasure, for 1 see the top part of a 6 or a 5 above the 7, and look here, too, Gift is in paler ink: a word has been scratched out there. It never struck me before, but the paper is not as white as the envelope. What can all this mean? I am more perplexed than ever. Mr. Fleming, you could tell me all about this, if you had a mind."

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"I can say nothing more than what I have said.— Mr. Day wrote those verses, and I saw him write them." "Did he compose them too? Come, if you certify to his handwriting, you can say who made the rhymes." Indeed, Miss Lee, that does not follow. But, instead of talking pleasantly about these little papers, you are looking cross, and very like wishing for a quarrel with me, so to prevent it I will just go over and see how the sweet Douglas looks after her valentine."

The young man went off gaily, without throwing any further light on the subject. The letters of the writing were very small, and she had seen nothing like it from any other pen. There was a particular turn to certain letters, which always distinguished Mr. Day's from all others; but he had said so positively, so emphatically, that he had never written a valentine, and Mr. Fleming had so positively asserted that he did write it, that she was very much perplexed. Her aunt could not relieve her difficulties; for, when Sophia repeated all that Fleming had said, Mrs. Brooks was of opinion that Mr. Day wrote the verses; but when she was reminded that Mr. Day denied it, then she was quite as sure that he did not write them.

Again and again Sophia examined the handwriting, and her aunt brought her a little account-book to compare it with the valentine. Mr. Day kept all her accounts with scrupulous exactness, transfering them from his large books to her miniature one, that she might at any moment, at a glance, see how her affairs stood. There was not the slightest difference that either of them could perceive: indeed, the result of this close inspection was. that Mr. Day, and he alone, had written the valentine.

The evening brought neither a solution nor Mr. Day; and his absence was painfully felt by Sophia, for she feared that he was offended. He generally spent his evenings with them; or, if he was engaged elsewhere, he always called in for a few minutes, either before he went or after he returned. To-morrow was her birth

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