will. I'll give a couple of thousands, so help me Gód, I will. And I'll give it in the name of a repentant old sinner. Oh-I'll do everything that a guilty wretch can do. But I must see my daughter!-I must hear her blessed innocent lips say that she forgives me." Pause, sir," said I, solemnly, 'you know not that she will live to leave the hospital, or receive your penitent acknowledgments-that she will not die while I am telling her the horrid-"

66

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"What! has she yet to hear of it?" he exclaimed, looking aghast.

"I told you so, sir, some time ago."

"Oh, yes--you did, you did but I forgot. Lord, Lord, I feel going mad!" He rose feebly from the sofa, and staggered for a moment to and fro, but his knees refused their support, and he sank down again upon his seat, where he sat staring at me with a dull glassy eye, while I proceeded:

"Another melancholy duty remains to be performed I think, sir, you should see his remains."

"I see the body!" Fright flitted over his face. "Do you wish me to drop down dead beside it, sir? I see the body! It would burst out a-bleeding directly I got into the room, for I murdered him! Oh God, forgive me! Oh spare me such a sight!"

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Well, sir, since your alarm is so great, that sad sight may be spared; but there is one thing you must do' I paused; he looked at me apprehensively "testify your repentance, sir, by following his poor remains to the grave."

"I-I could not! It's no use frightening me thus, doctor. I-I tell you I should die, I should never return home alive. But, if you'll allow it, my carriage shall follow. I'll give orders this very night for a proper, a splendid funeral, such as is fit for-my—my— son-in-law! He shall be buried in my vault. No, no, that cannot be, for then"-he shuddered-"I must lie beside him! But, I cannot go to the funeral! Lord, Lord, how the crowd would stare at me!-how they

would hoot me! They would tear me out of the coach. No"-he trembled "spare me that also, kind sirspare me attending the funeral! I'll remain at home in my own room in the dark all that day upon my knees, but I cannot, nay, I will not follow him to the grave. The tolling of that bell"-his voice died away— "would kill me."

"There is yet another thing, sir. His little boy"— my voice faltered-" is living at my house; perhaps you would refuse to see him, for he is very like his wretched father."

"Oh bring him! bring him to me !" he murmured. "How I will worship him! what I will do for him! But how his murdered father will always look out of his eyes at me! Oh my God! whither shall I go ; what must I do to escape? Oh that I had died and been buried with my poor wife, the other day, before I had heard of all this!"

"You would have known, you would have heard of it hereafter, sir."

"Ah! that's it! I know it, I know what you mean, and I feel it's true. Yes, I shall be damned for what I've done. Such a wretch, how can I expect forgiveness? Oh, will you read a prayer with me? No, I'll pray myself-no."

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Pray, sir, and may your prayers be heard! And also pray that I may be able to tell safely my awful message to your daughter, that the blow may not smite her into the grave! And lastly, sir," I added, rising and addressing him with all the emphasis and solemnity I could, "I charge you, in the name of God, to make no attempt to see your daughter, or send to her, till you see or hear from me again."

He promised to obey my injunctions, imploring me to call upon her the next day, and seizing my hand between his own with a convulsive grasp, from which I could not extricate it but with some little force. As I had never once offered a syllable of sympathy through

sternly, while he threw himself down at full length upon the sofa, and I heard without any emotion his half choked exclamation, "Lord, Lord, what is to become of me!"

On reaching the back drawing room, I encountered Miss Gubbley walking to and fro, excessively pale and agitated. I had uncoiled that little viper-I had plucked it from the heart into which it had crept, and so far I felt that I had not failed in that night's errand! I foresaw her speedy dismissal; and it took place within a week from the day on which I had visited Mr. Hillary.

The next day, about noon, I called at the lodging where Elliott's remains were lying, in order that I might make a few simple arrangements for a speedy funeral.

"Oh, here's Dr. the house, to a gentleman dressed in black, who, with two others in similar habiliments, was just quitting. "These 'ere gentlemen, sir, are come about the funeral, sir, of poor dear Mr. Elliott." I begged them to return into the house. "I presume, sir," said I, "you have been sent here by Mr. Hillary's orders?"

!" exclaimed the woman of

"A-Mr. Hillary did me the honour, sir, to request me to call, sir," replied the polite man of death, with a low bow," and am favoured with the expression of his wishes, sir, to spare no expense in showing his respect for the deceased. So my men have just measured the body, sir; the shell will be here to-night, sir, the leaden coffin the day after, and the outer cof

fin

"Stop, sir; Mr. Hillary is premature.

quite mistaken my wishes, sir.

He has

I act as the executor

of Mr. Elliott, and Mr. Hillary has no concern whatever with the burial of these remains."

He bowed, with an air of mingled astonishment and mortification.

"It is my wish and intention, sir," said I, "that this

unfortunate gentleman be buried in the simplest and most private manner possible."

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Oh, sir! but Mr. Hillary's orders to me were---pardon me, sir--so very liberal, to do the thing in a gentlemanlike way-"

"I tell you again, sir, that Mr. Hillary has nothing whatever to do with the matter, nor shall I admit of his interference. If you choose to obey my orders, you will procure a plain deal coffin, a hearse and pair, and one mourning coach, and provide a grave in

churchyard-nay, open Mr. Hillary's vault and bury there, if he will permit."

"I really think, sir, you'd better employ a person in the small way," said he, casting a grim look at his two attendants; "I am not accustomed--"

"You may retire then, sir, at once," said I; and with a lofty bow the great undertaker withdrew. No!despised, persecuted, and forsaken had poor Elliott been in his life; there should be, I resolved, no splendid mockery--no fashionable foolery about his burial! I chose for him, not the vault of Mr. Hillary, but a grave in the humble churchyard of where the poor suicide might slumber in "penitential loneliness!" He was buried as I wished-no one attending the funeral but myself, the proprietor of the house in which he had lived at the period of his death, and the early and humble acquaintance who had attended his wedding. I had wished to carry with us as chief mourner, little Elliott, by, way of fulfilling, as far as possible, the touching injunctions left by his father, but my wife dissuaded me from it. "Well, poor Elliott," said I, as I took my last look into his grave

'After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.'

Heaven forgive the rash act which brought his days to an untimely close, and him whose cruelty and wickedness occasioned it!"

gloomy presence of Mr. Hillary. His hard heart was indeed broken by the blow that poor Elliott had struck, whose mournful prophesy was in this respect fulfilled. Providence decreed that the declining days of the inexorable and unnatural parent should be clouded with a wretchedness that admitted of neither intermission nor alleviation, equally destitute as he was of consolation from the past, and hope from the future!

And his daughter!-oh, disturb not the veil that has fallen over the broken hearted!

Never again did the high and noble spirit of Mary Elliott lift itself up-for her heart lay buried in her young husband's grave--the grave dug for him by the eager and cruel hands of her father! In vain did those hands lavishly scatter about her all the splendour and luxuries of unbounded wealth-they could never divert her cold undazzled eye from the mournful image of him whose death had purchased them; and what could she see in her too late repentant father, but his murderer ?

END OF THE MERCHANT'S CLERK.