I

worth's distress, that "it was all bam." He was positive Crockett could both hear and understand; and he would bet fifty to one there were times and seasons when he could speak without let or hindrance.

"Speak!" cried the lady-"oh no! Those gentle lips will never, -never-utter sounds in this world! Hear and understand!' Alas! no! Look at his innocent face! Is there a vestige of deceit there? Charles, Charles, learn to entertain a better opinion of your fellowcreatures."

Charles whistled.

I tell you," continued the lady, "he's a sufferer."

And you, my dear aunt, are another."

"You shock me! These horrid legal studies have blunted all your finer feelings. It must be so. Regard that poor unhappy boy as an impostor!"

"I'll prove him such, if you will permit me to meet him here in your presence to-morrow morning."

"I will permit no such thing," cried Miss Matilda warmly. "I will not suffer a poor dumb boy to be tormented in my house. I've too much compassion; and, let me add, too much respect for him." "And he returns the compliment with laughter."

The lady paused: then with deepened colour and faltering tone repeated, "Laughter! at what and whom?"

"At you, my dear aunt, and your piteous ejaculations respecting him."

"Positive! He is somewhat of a humorist. I have seen his eyes laugh-laugh as intelligibly and merrily as eyes can and do laugh." "And this while I-I have been speaking?" said the lady, now visibly incensed.

"Meet him here

Unquestionably;" was the gentleman's rejoinder. "This is dreadful!" ejaculated Miss Matilda. to-morrow decidedly. Do so by all means. Laughter! laughter! when every feeling I had was wrung with compassion. Lamentable! lamentable !"

Her kinsman hastened to correct her.

“Do not let me mislead you. His eyes laughed; and from their expression I was confident Crockett understood, and richly appreciated, the farce in which he was first performer. This is my meaning."

"I fathom it but too clearly. Be here at noon to-morrow. If you prove him an impostor, never will I again"

"Make no rash vows, lady," said the much-amused Templar, quitting his annoyed relative's presence with a roar.

The Templar kept his appointment to the minute, and met in his aunt's morning room that worshipful lady herself,-her face clad in most portentous frowns; the deaf and dumb boy, as usual, all innocence and helplessness, and his hungry-eyed and expectant mother.

Whether it was essential to the success of young Barkworth's scheme that he should throw all parties off their guard; or whether he truly and cordially exulted in the part he had undertaken; or whether he had "assisted," as he asserted, at a champagne breakfast" that morning, he, the arch-plotter, can best determine. The exuberance of his spirits, feigned or real, was overwhelming. He "fooled it to the

top of his bent." And, after many an absurd speech, and many a madcap trick, suddenly wound up the scene by seizing a red-hot poker and applying it "whizz! fizz! whizz!" to the elbow of the deaf and dumb boy's woollen jerkin.

All thought him crazed, the sufferer included. One shrieked ; another cried "help!" But "Dummie," wholly forgetting his part, and put suddenly past his guard, roared out, in tones which completely o'er-mastered the rest,

"Fire! fire! you infernal fool! what devilry are you up to?"

Strange accents, certainly, from "innocent lips!" Such was the impression of Miss Matilda Barkworth. For, after one long, vacant, incredulous stare, she uttered a dismal shriek, and fainted.

Exposure, magisterial reproof, and imprisonment, followed. His mother bore with Spartan indifference, the shame of detection; but lamented, characteristically enough, the curtailment of her income.

"It was a cruel thing," she said, "that the lady's hateful nephew -I wish he may die of skilly in a union workhouse !-would n't take things quietly. How am I to live, I should like to know, without Caleb's infirmity? He was as good as sixty pounds a-year to me. We thought it a bad day's work when we did n't bag three-and-six pence; and I have, in summer time, before now, counted up, within a penny, a half-sovereign. And how am I to get my living? I can't work, I never could! And them Unions is horrible to think of!—I can't abide 'em."

upon

How this knotty point was smoothed away, and whether to the satisfaction of the complaining party, I cared not to inquire. The destiny of the boy was, pro tempore, certain. He was lodged for three months in her Majesty's gaol at and came daily under my personal observation. A lad of remarkably fine parts he unquestionably was, greedy of information-endued with a singularly retentive memory, and able to connect the lessons which were regularly given him; and thus to make the information of to-day explain and illus trate the morning reading of yesterday. I persuaded myself-or nearly so that a durable impression had been made him. Deep was the sorrow which he expressed as to his past life, and repeated were his assurances that he would seek an honest livelihood: means and appliances towards such a result were not wanting on his release. For myself-shall I confess my folly ?—I believed him. I conceived his disgust at imposture real, and his determination to abjure it sin But ere long, I lost sight of him. He had flitted,-none could After some months, a fragment of an Exeter paper casually met my eye. There was in it a paragraph headed "Deaf and Dumb," to the details of which I turned with eagerness. They were to this effect:-that an interesting-looking boy, deaf and dumb, of about eleven years old, had been met with on the Hoo at Plymouth; that whence he came or how he got there, was a mystery; that he had light hair, a fair complexion, and an expression of countenance singu larly artless and winning; that a subscription for his relief had been entered into: and among various parties named as interested in his behalf was that of General Sir John Cameron, Government House, Devonport.

cere.

say whither.

Vexatious as was the paragraph, I laughed at its close. Sir John was one of the most cautious and wary of human beings. Phlegmatic in temperament-a "canny Scot," and slow in arriving at

his conclusions,-prudent in disposing of his well-earned "siller"wide awake on most occasions-an old soldier, and therefore proof against the "gab,"—that Sir John should have been duped, was glorious indeed.

I took my own disappointment infinitely less to heart when I found I had a fellow-sufferer in the valorous old General. What was the feat of mystifying a parson compared with that of victimizing Sir John Cameron? I was at peace with all the world when I reflected upon it!

Another "juvenile delinquent," on whom considerable pains were bestowed, to apparently as little purpose, was a pinched, diminutive, sad-looking girl, who gave in the name of Fanny Marks. Her age was never correctly ascertained. We could only guess at it. She meekly assured us that she did not know it herself "for a certainty," but believed it to be eleven. As such it was inserted. But Mr. Croak always denied the accuracy of the entry, and maintained she was years older. Her line was original, and she was well up to her part. She had a peculiar method of elongating her face, of drawing down the muscles of her mouth, and assuming an air of misery and wretchedness which few passers-by could resist. She never begged. She was too "fly" for that. But she held in her hand a tiny basket, filled with tape, bobbin, needles, bodkins, and similar small ware; and as each respectable foot-passenger neared her, she, with mute and respectful gesture, solicited CUSTOM.

A miniature personification was she of misery and want; and her colourless cheeks,-large, sunken eyes,-hands over which the skin seemed drawn like parchment; and long, thin, spider-like claws-fingers they were not, well kept up the deception. When addressed, her answer ran, and the reply was invariably given in the most feeble accents, "Faint! faint! varied occasionally to "Bread! bread!' The frequent result was relief; afforded with many words of compassion for one so young and so destitute.

her home.

At length her evil stars shed their malignant influence over her. A vigilant magistrate crossed her path, observed her proceedings, deemed them suspicious, subjected her to "surveillance," and ascertained That home, though in an unfrequented part of a lonely suburb, and in its exterior squalid, dark, and dreary to the last degree, was found well-plenished; and the issue was an introduction, for a brief period, to Gaol. As she came into the chaplain's room on her commitment, I looked at her, and thought I had never seen in a child such a melancholy, desponding, oppressed expression,-had never gazed on a face so hopelessly and unnaturally sad. Three days afterwards, as I passed by the day-room of the female prisoners, I heard, during the temporary absence of "the women's turnkey," unwonted commotion and hilarity. Bursts of laughter arose on all sides. They were caused, I learnt afterwards, by the melancholy girl, Marks. She Was "going through her leaps,"-her agility was extraordinary,-and giving her delighted auditory some idea of what she could do, and had done, when she travelled with Richardson's company, and played in "Peter Wilkins; or, the Flying Indians."

"In truth," as the matron angrily remarked, "there never was a girl more difficult to control. Nothing she could say or do could keep down her fun!"

Poor Fanny! she had an irresistible turn for mirth

real, right

down, unmistakable mirth. The sadness and melancholy of her visage, -the piteous expression of her eye,-these were part and parcel of her trade. But her drollery, fun, and sportiveness were native to her. Touching them she was "to the manner born." Let justice be done. From hypocrisy she was free. She never gave me to understand that by the privations, warnings, or restraints of a prison, she had been at all impressed; would never make any promise that she would abandon her idle and fraudulent course of life. When urged to seek, and follow an honest livelihood, she coolly remarked :—

"She couldn't work. It didn't agree with her."

The matron was earnest on the same point; and suggested to her, as she could sew neatly and quickly, household needlework.

"No! no!" was her rejoinder, "needlework won't do. It wearies me, and it worries me. I don't come of a working family."

The term of her imprisonment drew on, and her aversion to honest labour was as vigorous as ever. She was perfectly respectful in ber demeanour; read in class quietly, carefully, and earnestly. But her views were unchanged.

'Your career of imposture here is at an end," was my closing remark. "Here you are well known, and will be watched." "I will spare all parties that trouble," said she promptly. "Do so, and effectually, by earning an honest livelihood."

"I cannot say that, sir, because I do not mean it. I understand my situation. I must move, and go farther. I intend to do so. I have no fears. There are compassionate people everywhere!" Much effect, truly, had prison discipline had upon her!

HORE ACADEMICE.

BY LITTLEGO.

Next the Persian Nadir made a terrible stir,

With his Musselmaun hordes to subdue it;

But the Prophet's command is "Shun wine, or be

So no wonder that he could not do it.

When Portugal tried, 't was in vain that she fried

Petits plats of Hindoos and Pariahs;
Or managed to stow a whole cargo at
Goa

Of orthodox padres and friars.
And 't was equally vain that Duplin and
Suffrein

Imported the fiddle and dance; They drank eau sacrée, by no means the way

To attach Jolly Bacchus to France.

But his Godship enjoys us hard-drinking boys,

From old Lawrence and Clive, down to Sale;

And swears we shall rule if we don't

play the fool

And stick till all 's blue to Pale Ale!

THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS,

THE POISONER OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

A ROMANCE OF OLD PARIS.

BY ALBERT SMITH.

[WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY J. LEECH.]

CHAPTER X.

What further befel Louise in the catacombs of the Bièvre.

As the last of the lawless band departed from the carrière, Lachaussée advanced towards the altar, at the foot of which Louise Gauthier had claimed a sanctuary. In spite of Bras d'Acier's last threat, the denunciation of the Abbé Camus had somewhat awed him. But Lachaussée was less scrupulous. He was as dead to all religious feeling as the others, and besides this, superstition had no power over him. Advancing to the cross, he seized the arm of Louise, and tore her from the altar into the middle of the apartment.

The knocking which had struck such terror into the hearts of the subterraneous gang, still continued: and again Louise raised her voice for assistance.

"They will murder me!" she cried. "Help! this instant, or it will be too late. There are but two, and-"

Lachaussée placed his hand over her mouth, and stopped her cries. And then, assisted by Bras d'Acier, he hurried her into a smaller carrière leading from the great one by a rude archway, which could be closed after a manner, like the door, by a large curtain of rude sackcloth. It was a vault hewn out similarly to the other, with a rough attempt to form a gothic roof and buttresses from the limestone. But there were horrid features in the apartment which made Louise shudder as she looked timidly round. A dull and smoking lamp was here also suspended from the ceiling; and by its light could be seen coffins in every direction round the walls: some with their feet projecting some inches beyond them; others lying sideways, such as we see bounding the grave of a crowded burying-ground. In many instances they were open, but no remains were visible. Their cases appeared to have been appropriated to the use of cupboards, in which articles of various kinds were stored. In one corner were a few skulls and bones thrown carelessly together; the number was insignificant, and they were not ranged in the order of the existing catacombs. As we have stated, the carrières were at present the mere result of excavations for buildingstone; it was not until more than a century after the date of our story that the health of the city demanded the removal of the foul and reeking burial-ground attached to the Eglise des Innocens, at the corner of the Rue St. Denis and the Rue aux Fers, near the present market, with whose beautiful fountain every visitor to Paris is familiar.*

* The ill effects which the overcharged Cimetière des Innocens had upon the salubrity of Paris, situated as it was in its most crowded quarter, had been matter of complaint for four hundred years. Yet, such was the opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities, and the blind and superstitious obstinacy of the people generally, although the tainted air they breathed was thick with putrefaction and disease, that it was not until 1785 that the Council of State ordered its demolition. It was supposed, up to that time there had been one million two hundred thousand bodies forced into its comparatively narrow limits!

VOL. XVII.

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