Mine is no love of yesterday; no concealed or clandestine attachment. We have met openly at the institution lectures;—have walked together on summer evenings. Mr. Sumner, without any verbal recognition of our engagement, has yet often, after church on a Sunday, virtually, sanctioned it, by smiling and significant invitations to accompany Elizabeth and the children to his home; nay, even you yourself, by your manner of speaking to her and of her, have led me to believe that you considered her as a daughter. You are too keen an observer, too kind and careful a father, not to have seen the state of my affections; and I thought you too wise and too liberal, to set a little paltry money in competition with the happiness of a whole life, or to wish me to break my plighted troth to one whom I dearly love-to one who loves me-to marry I know not whom, for the sake of adding needless pelf to our already flourishing fortunes. I had thought your only son was dearer to you than money. But I was mistaken: you hold my honor and my welfare at no higher price than this gaud." And he threw from him in bitterness of spirit the roll of ribbon which he had been so busily folding and unfolding.

The pen dropped from the father's hand. "You ARE mistaken, Edward," said he, in a low voice, which was interrupted for a moment by a sound well known to the inhabitants of Bedford—the deep, hoarse cry of "Shoes! old shoes!-shoes! old shoes! from beneath the window.

"You are mistaken, my dear son, not in my feelings but in my circumstances. The fortunes of the poor half-starved wretch who is calling "shoes" through the wintry snow, are more flourishing than mine. Without your aid I am a bankrupt!"

Another hoarse, deep cry of "Shoes! old shoes!-shoes to buy! shoes to sell! old shoes!" gave to the agitated father the pause which his feelings required. His son was too much absorbed in astonishment and horror for speech; he could only listen in silent agony to a story which seemed to him rather like a frightful dream than a stern and waking reality. Mr. Morris continued:

"You were too young when your blessed mother died, to remember her distinctly; and your poor sisters gentle and amiable as they were, inherited rather her delicacy of constitution than her vigor of mind. Far above me in birth, in education, and in cultivation, she was yet left destitute at the age of seventeen, by the improvidence and sudden death of her father, a dignified clergyman; and I owed the blessing of her hand chiefly to her desire to procure for her twin brother a home and a protector. Before our marriage she made me promise to treat William Arnot as my own younger brother, as my own eldest son; to be to him as a friend, a guardian, a father: and of this most solemn promise she requested the renewal upon her death-bed. Heaven and you, my son, pardon me if I have kept it but too faithfully! Let me make short work of this wretched matter. I placed him as clerk in a banking house in the city, where, as you know, he rose to be cash

ier. I and another friend of my family were his securities, and all seemed fair and prosperous. Three months ago he came to me in agony of guilt and despair. He had been speculating in the sharemarket. He had embezzled a large sum belonging to the firm, and, unless it were replaced by a certain day, his liberty, his character, life-for never, he swore, would he survive the loss of reputationwere destroyed. Could I hesitate? Even had I abandoned him to his fate, I was equally ruined, since the house would have come upon me and upon the friend who at my pressing instance, had joined me as his bondsman, to indemnify them for their loss. The sum was to a man in my station, enormous, exceeding, by some thousands, the earnings of five and twenty years that I had passed in business. The deficiency was however, raised for me, within the stipulated time, by our friendly solicitor, Mr. Byrne, who happened to have, at the time, a client who was willing to lend the money upon my personal security, and this house, with the stock and furniture, I gave him a bill of sale on all my effects; and was considering whether or not to break the matter to you, or to go on upon credit, and leave the result to time, when Mr. Byrne made me, two days ago, a most unexpected overture, from the friends of a young person with a portion of £5,000, who, although informed of my difficulties, was yet willing to marry her to you, willing to pay off the debt, requiring nothing but a settlement of the rest of the money, and such an arrangement as to partnership as I should have been, under any circumstances; but too happy to enter into. I have not seen her I do not even know her name; but she is, they tell me, young, well-educated and amiable-a thoroughly good and exemplary girl."

"Oh, my father, do with me as you like!-But yet, Elizabeth!— dear, dear Elizabeth!"

"You would rather, then, be poor and happy with her whom you love. So be it my dear son. Go to your Elizabeth. See if she be willing to share your poverty; willing to wait until some prospect may arise, that should, in some sort authorize your union. The unhappy man whose imprudence has been our ruin, spoke of one whose defalcation had ruined him, and who might, who probably would hereafter make good the sums for which he was engaged. He has repeated this expectation in a letter which I received from him last week. But that hope is too vague to build upon. See Elizabeth-disclose to her, unreservedly, the position of affairs-I feel that, with her, the confidence will be sacred-and then act as you see good. Put me out of the question. I am still strong and healthy, and capable of earning my bread as a shopman."

"O father! never! never!" interrupted Edward, with a sharp and sudden revulsion of feeling. "Even if I were so undutiful, so unnatural, she would not consent; I know she would not. Often and often has she said that she felt that our marriage would never take place; that it never ought to take place; that your son, the son of the most respectable tradesman in Bedford, ought not to be uni

ted to a poor girl from a charity school. And, now, that that union can only be accomplished by depriving you of your home, by sending you in your old age to serve as a hireling-oh, she would never hear of it would never bear the thought!"

"Go to Elizabeth," repeated Mr. Morris, in a smothered voice, pressing his son's hands between his, with an energy that betokened the struggle of his feelings-"Go and consult with your Elizabeth." And, as the shopmen and apprentices came flocking in, and the lighted gas gave a glittering brilliancy to the rich and gaily decorated shop, radiant with shawls, and silks, and ribbons, of a hundred varied hues-and a group of customers, gay country ladies, who wished to choose an evening dress by candlelight, appeared at the door-he escaped into the street, with an instinctive desire for solitude, and, almost unconsciously, took the road to St. Michael's Rectory.

The lamps in the streets and shops were now burning, and showed, with a most striking effect of light and shadow, the fantastic outline of the picturesque old town-the tops of the houses covered with snow, the icicles hanging from the eaves, and the windows already covered with icy frost-work. The pavement was again alive with passengers-men and women hurrying to the Post Of fice; flies and carriages gliding, with a sort of dull, rumbling sound, along the snowy road; a stage-coach emptying itself of its freezing passengers at the Red Lion; a man with periwinkles, and a woman with hot chesnuts, each so muffled, the man in a frieze cloak, and the woman in a dreadnaught coat, that it would have puzzled an Edipus to decide betwixt the he and the she; one little girl lingering longingly in the wake of the periwinkles; two great boys burning their fingers in a bold attempt to filch the burning chesnuts; other children rushing aimlessly along, shouting and bellowing as if to scare the cold. Men were thumping their feet upon the ground, and buffeting their chests with their arms to restore the circulation; women were chattering, dogs barking, beggars begging, fiddlers scraping, bells ringing, knockers tat-tat-tat-ing-in short, all the noises of a wintry evening, in a country town, were in full activity. From the High Bridge, where the broad, bright river, with its double line of wharves and houses, crowded with people, its boats and its barges forms so gay and pretty a moving picture, so full of bustle, and color of light and of life-from the High Bridge, the Kennet now showed, like a mirror, reflecting on its icy surface, with a peculiarly broad and bluish shine, the arch of lamps surmounting the graceful airy bridge, and the twinkling lights that glanced, here and there, from boat, or barge, or wharf, or from some uncurtained window that overhung the river. The snow lay in drifts upon either shore, marking the long perspective, and glanced upon the suburban cottages and the distant country, edging into the gentle uplands, hardly deserving the name of hills, that closed the prospect, strongly relieved, at the present moment, by the dark and dusky sky. In spite of his distress and pre-occupied mind,

poor Edward, who had, probably without knowing it, much of those too rare gifts, the poet's feeling and the painter's eye, could not help stopping a moment, on the centre of the bridge, to contemplate so fine an effect of chiar' oscuro, so striking and beautiful a picture, composed almost without color, by the nice contrast of light and shade.

While he stood admiring the scene, he was overtaken by the old man whom he had heard, a short while previously, crying 'Shoes! shoes! under the window of his father's shop; and whom he had passed just before, whilst engaged in chaffering for some of his com modities with an orange-woman, whose barrow was stationed at the end of the bridge.

1

This itinerant shoe merchant was, as I have said, well-known to the inhabitants of Bedford by the name of old Isaac; and, from his name, his calling, his keenness at a bargain, as well as from his quick, black eye, acquiline nose, and a greater proportion of beard than is usually suffered to adorn a Christian countenance, was commonly reputed to be a Jew. He was a spare old man, of the middle height, somewhat stooping, but with a picturesque and richly colored head, surmounted by an old slouched hat. His patched and faded garments were well nigh hidden by two enormous bags, in which he carried the old shoes which he bought, and the new ones, or soi distant new, for he was a great man at a rifacimento, and had the art to "gar auld shoon look 'maist as guid's the new" -which he sold.

"Buy a pair of warm slippers, master, this cold night?" quoth Isaac. "Wedding slippers, fine enough for a lord.” "Nothing, this evening," said Edward.

"Have 'em a bargain, master," persisted the man of shoes. "I am not in want of any," rejoined Edward, moving on.

"Wedding shoes, then?-wedding boots? Must buy somewhat," continued the vender, pertinaciously keeping up with our friend's rapid steps, and thrusting before his eyes the articles which he named.

"I tell you that I want neither wedding slippers nor wedding shoes, nor any of your commodities," answered Edward, with some humor, endeavoring to escape from his pursuer.

"Don't ye!" exclaimed Isaac, with a knowing twinkle of his keen black eye. Don't ye! Well, then, buy for the want that's to come. I've set my heart upon having a bit of a deal with ye to-night, and shan't mind bating a penny or two, rather than balk my fancy. You shall have 'em under prime cost," continued Isaac, coaxingly; "you shall have 'em for next to nothing. Do ye have 'em! We must have a deal. You'll see that you'll be married sooner than you think for. Your time's coming. So you may as well buy the wedding slippers at once. What do ye bid for 'em? Make an offer."

"Not a farthing, Jew. I am in haste. You need not untie the bag. You have nothing that I would take if you would give it me.

Let me pass on. of you." "Don't be too sure of that, Master Edward Morris. You and I may come to a deal yet. Jew, quotha! No more a Jew than yourself. If your eyes were not turned another way, you might see me in the aisle of St. Michael's church every Sunday morning and afternoon, as regular as yourself. Jew! 'Tis an extraordinary compliment you idle folk pay to that tramping race, that whenever you meet a body who takes care of the main chance, and turns an honest penny, you call him a Jew.. Well, Master Edward, you'll see that you'll come to me for your wedding slippers." And, so saying, Isaac shouldered his bag again, and left the path free.

I am not going to be married. I want nothing

At another moment, Edward would have smiled at the old man's acute observation of the direction of his glances in church, and at his persevering endeavor to attract a customer, founded upon that observation; but his thoughts were too painfully divided between his father and his mistress-his duty and his love; and, during his rapid walk to St. Michael's rectory, he could only resolve to be guided in all things by the judgment and feeling of Elizabeth.

She received her lover with the gentle self-possession, the calm and serious sweetness, which characterised her manner, and which had been partly, perhaps, the cause, partly the result of the confidence placed in her by Mr. Sumner. His father had, to suit his purpose, forced himself to advert to her situation and her origin in his conversation with his son; but Edward felt proudly that there was no trace of the charity school or of the servant's hall in the lovely woman who stood before him, with a simple and unaffected propriety-in a higher rank it would have been termed dignitythat would have beseemed a palace. His distress was immediately visible to her, and her anxious inquiries served to introduce his story.

"We must part, Edward; as to that there can be neither doubt nor question," said she, in a low, steady voice, whilst the tears trembled on the long fringes of her large black eyes, and the rich color went and came on the finely-turned cheeks and lips, which a sculptor would have been proud to model. "We must part. I have always known that it would be so-always felt, without suspecting or dreaming of this obstacle, that Mr. Morris would find an insuperable objection to receiving me into his family. I ought, perhaps, knowing that, to have forbidden your visits. But I was encouraged in my attachment by one whom I am bound to obey, and by whose orders I have acted in this business; and my own feelings led me but too readily into the error. Oh, if it were only for ourselves, this poverty would be nothing! Young, active, accustomed to exertion, it would be delightful to labor with you and for you-delightful to feel that there was no superiority on your side, except that of your respectable connexions, and your manly and vigorous character. But your father-your kind and excellent father!-to tear him from his home, to send him in his old age