way to smiles, when you learn that he is no longer the poverty-stricken being he was represented to you; no longer a pauper! Thanks be to GOD! I am enabled to make up the losses he has sustained by me. It is not long since I landed; but I have not been idle since my return. The house of his fathers is restored to him. He will be once more rich, and happy: but-but, I know not where to find him. The letters I wrote him from the South are still, I find, in the post-office. I know that he came to BostonI heard this morning that he was you a few days since, and that perhaps, you-you-could inform me where he is now to be met with. For God's sake! relieve me from this terrible suspense, and tell me if you know, what-what has become of Charles Alleyne ?"

seen with

-

Mrs. Enfield was about to speak, when Somerville approaching her, in great agitation, gasped out, "Have either of you seen or heard of, or from him, since last Wednesday morning?"

“No!" was the sad, and fearful, response. "Then GOD forgive me!" cried Somerville, in a low, hoarse tone. "I fear I have murdered my

best friend!"

A feeling of horror kept the ladies silent. Cicero groaned aloud.

"Yes-yes," continued Somerville, bitterly,

"if-if what I suspect, HAS taken place, I shall ever look upon myself as the MURDERER of Charles Alleyne! But for me, he would still have been `rich, and happy! I-I alone, was the accursed

cause

"Oh no, no-no-no! Massa Summerville," sobbed the black; "poor Massa Charles, he always say you was his best, his only friend in the world."

66

“But, surely,” said Mrs. Enfield, to Somerville, you alarm yourself without sufficient cause. A friend of ours had traced Mr. Alleyne to"

"I know, madam;" cried Somerville, "to the low and miserable Inn where he had taken up his abode. I was told that a gentleman had inquired if Mr. Alleyne was, or had been, staying there. But since Wednesday morning last, my friend has not been near the house. A small parcel of linen that, (judging from his reduced circumstances,) must have been of value to him, is still lying in the room he occupied; no vessel has sailed from the harbor since Wednesday; nearly a week has elapsed since he was heard of. I know that he was without money,-and a hat and a handkerchief, that have been recognised as belonging to him, were found on Central Wharf, early on Thursday morning!

CHAPTER VII.

LET us retrace our steps a little, and go back to the Thursday morning, alluded to by Somerville, at the close of our last chapter.

It was about six o'clock, when two seamen were seen coming from India Wharf, down India Street. They walked slowly and appeared busily engaged in conversation.

"Tell me, Sam, said the taller of the two,-(it was our old acquaintance, Jack Adams,)-"tell me, Sam, what was the meaning of those feller's palaver last night? Divil take me, if I could make out one word in ten the lubbers said. Fred. Allist d-n O'Cratt! Jack's son, and little VanClaymen and Aunty-Mason! (I've got an Aunt Mason-but what's she to them?) What did the swabs mean by all them ere? Who was the Sergeant they talked about, that wants to be promoted? What's the tar-reef they kicked up such

a shindy about? Who's the Nolly Fachun, they talked about putting down so cleverly? And what ails the creturs, that makes them so to cry out about their constitutions being ruinated? They looked hearty enough,-I'm thinking."

"Pooh, Jack!" returned Sam,-“their lingo is plain enough, when you've been a little used to it. It was all about politics."

"Polly who?"

"Avast, Jack! Your head's always running upon the petticoats. It was state affairs that they were squabbling about; POLITICS, you know. The ins and outs, and all that ere."

"Oho! I see.

got to do with it?

But what's Caroline's doctrine

And who is Caroline?" "Carolina, you mean;-why she's for nullifying."

"Nullifying? What's that?"

Why, d'ye see, Jack, it would take up too much time to explain the whole business; but the long and the short of it (as I understand the matter) is that Carolina says to the Northern States- If I produce the cotton (says she,) and employ you to carry it for me, and to bring back goods in return, its a darned deal too hard that you should make me buy your stockings, when I can get them cheaper and better at another shop. There's my cotton (says she,) it costs me the devil and all, in the first instance, to produce it-then

I have to pay your merchants, and your shipowners, and the devil knows who besides, (says she) before I can carry it to market;-then you make me pay toll, not only for the other goods I may take in exchange, but for my own cotton, turned into stockings; because, forsooth, you have set up a stocking-store of your own, (says she,)— and then'-but the fact is, Jack, there are other matters which Carolina complains about-so she says, 'I never consented, when I agreed to join hands with you (says she,) that the managers of our general concern were to have the power of doing so-and-so. I reserved certain rights to myself, and my family, (says she,) and will NOT have those rights interfered with. I stand by our written compact.

"If you give any order that appears to me to be in the teeth of that, (says she,) I shall tell the world that I won't abide by it;-and I won'tsink me.' And that, Jack Adams, is what she calls NULLIFICATION."

"Ay, ay, Sam; I see, them ere others are close shavers. They gets all the profits, and the old woman pays dearly for her stockings. It puts me in mind of a rum thing. D'ye see, my uncle Mason was a small farmer, in Lincolnshire, (in the Old Country, d'ye mind ;).and he used to plough, and sow, and reap; working hard, day and night; and forced, now and then, to pay a mint of money