"Then," said Paul, "we part to meet no more!" "Paul," said Cornelius, in a low, husky voice, and with trembling lip, "I have a presentiment at my heart that it is even so. Let us part as friends-as brothers should. Let not the unhappy differences that have estranged us of late efface from our hearts the remembrance of past years. We were born in the same house, Paul; we are of the same blood; were children together; together grew to manhood-can you forget this ?"

"Would to God you had never forgotten it, Cornelius."

"That delusion is over, Paul; give me your hand at parting, and say that, however much I may have offended you, I am forgiven."

"Sincerely-cordially," said Paul, putting forth his hand and warmly pressing his brother's; "my best wishes, my kindest love go with you."

"God bless you for that, Paul; I would part in peace and in kindness with all those with whom my once happy life was spent. Margaret, my child," he said, as he folded her in his arms, "my only child, you are free -entirely free from all the commands I ever laid on your young heartdispose of it as you will and when you will, a father's blessing will rest on you, be your fate what it may. I enjoin nothing-I wish for nothing but your happiness; of that, perhaps, you will be the best judge. Farewell, Margaret-farewell, my Mary, my dearest wife-we'll meet again here, or there above," he concluded, pointing to the calm heavens, whose expanse was now spangled with stars.

Paul fell back not to interfere with his brother's parting injunctions to his family, and drawing nearer to the stern of the boat where the skipper and Van Diest stood in close conference, a few words of their discourse reached his ear.

“Now mind,” said Van Diest, "whatever they offer I will double." "I want no more than I have received," answered the skipper, in a gruff voice; "you have given me more than enough already, and a bargain is a bargain with me all the world over, whatever you may think of it, Master van Diest; so you need not be afraid. More than I have agreed to I sometimes do, but what Peter Kuyp has once promised, why, you see, Peter Kuyp will perform, happen what will."

"That's right, quite right, honest Peter,-I believe you, but there is no harm in making safe safer, you know.”

"If safe be not safe, how will you make it safer, I wonder?" said the same harsh, guttural voice; "but come, I must have no more of all this whispering and snivelling on board-all is ready, and we must be off. If you don't trust me take your man ashore again. It is not I that will prevent you."

you?

"How many are with
"Another man and a boy."
"Can you depend on them?”

"Ay; if they had a mind to blab, why, I would not advise them, that's all."

These words were spoken in so fierce a tone, that Paul felt the speaker was in earnest. It was, moreover, too late to turn back, and Cornelius must even run the risk of a passage with this man, although Paul more than suspected that the risk was great, any future attempt to bring this

person to account for the safe arrival of his brother being more than useless.

The skipper now grew peremptory, and Cornelius's friends left the boat with reluctant steps; and when, somewhat roughly advised by the master of the boat, Cornelius descended into the close, stifling hole below, dignified with the name of cabin, his heart sank within him, and he could almost have wished at that moment the few foul-smelling planks which alone guarded him from the deep waters to part asunder, that a sudden death, within sight of all he loved on earth, might spare him further trials, which he scarcely felt himself equal to.

With very different feelings was he watched from the shore as the little dark, one-masted boat was seen slowly and noiselessly disengaging itself from the cluster of wherries of all sizes among which it lay. This manœuvre took some time to accomplish; then the solitary mast was seen gliding over the waters like a shade, so silent and yet swift was its motion. It was soon lost to view behind intervening and larger vessels, whose more intricate rigging, added to the obscurity, formed an effectual veil to the fugitive bark.

Van Diest and Paul, at the prudent suggestion of the former, took their way back alone to their respective homes, whilst Kay escorted the weeping wife and daughter to their house; and thus far the escape of Cornelius seemed most happily effected.

MISS JEWSBURY'S NEW NOVEL.*

MISS JEWSBURY has made herself a reputation for interesting and clever pictures of character and situation in modern society. The feelings which she entertains of the novel may be best expressed in her own words:

If there were not an immense power of discretion latent in the world, the revelations of private life that would ensue from the unlocking of all the "perilous stuff" which most people possess, in their knowledge of the secret passages in the history of the men and women amongst whom they move, would make dreadful confusion in the "hearts and homes" of the public in general. We all of us live in a world of inedited romance; but as every man is concealed behind a veil of flesh, which is impenetrable even while it serves to make him visible, nothing can be absolutely known that is not declaredand absorbed as each one is in his own personal interests, half the dramas that are translated before our very eyes remain unseen and unsuspected. The possessor of an estate may be ignorant of a mine of metallic wealth lying beneath the surface, until some day he chances to strike his foot against a stone, and so develop the first step towards a discovery.

For ourselves, we have always lived among the most ordinary and naturallooking routine of things, ignorant alike of difficulties and mysteries, and yet the day came when we saw "things that did not appear." We have seen and

Marian Withers. By Geraldine E. Jewsbury, author of "Zoe," "The Half Sisters," &c.

conversed with most of the persons named in this tale. We knew them at the crisis of their fate; and yet, engrossed by the detail of our own personalities, we never suspected the complicated game of human interests and passions which were fermenting beneath the surface of the balls and dinner parties, and all the ordinary intercourse of society.

There is a deal of feminine philosophy in this. When people are not entirely engrossed with thoughts of self, they must inevitably discover that there is a world of romance around them, even at the dinner-table or in the ball-room; and if they possess sympathy of a sufficiently wideembracing nature, talent to depict the scenes enacted (however apparently humble the characters) before their eyes, powers of observation to dive into the thoughts and motives of others, fancy to colour, and genius sufficient to develop incidents in their true relation to the thoughts and feelings which communicated the first impulses, however strange and unexpected their modes of manifestation may be, they cannot fail to produce out of a narrative of daily and domestic life a story of real interest, as we find exemplified in the instance of "Marian Withers."

It begins as a "Manchester story"- -a story of labour, poverty, and sickness, relieved by human sympathy and charity-working against, not ordinary difficulties, but difficulties such as may possibly exist, but which fancy has certainly coloured a little. John Withers-the inventor-an old story, the pursuit of knowledge under all sorts of adverse circumstances; a broken heart that shields its sorrows under a cloak of affection for Marian, the heroine, and the child of the beloved rival; Marian herself brought up without considering that the style of education was such as must inevitably make her dissatisfied with the society she was likely to be thrown amongst; a Mrs. Arl, with whom tradespeople and farmers do not come within the pale of civilisation; an old roué, Mr. Glynton, who, like most of his class, seeks for a young, pretty, innocent damsel for a wife, and to whom Hilda Arl plays the shepherdess; Mrs. Fergus Blair, a professed match-maker; a lover for Marian in "Cousin Albert," an elegant, gentle, prepossessing youth, but of little principle; the Vivians, rivals in appearances, pretensions, and marriageable daughters, to the Arls; Sir Frederick and Lady Wollaston, lovers of excitement and intrigue; and a host of other sketchy characters, fill up the pages of a most interesting story; in which homely, honest, and laborious life is placed, by the circumstances of Marian's education and the false position she is made to occupy in society, in constant contrast with fashionable emptiness, heartlessness, and pretension. From all of these, however, our heroine is ultimately saved by wedding one more worthy of her than Albert, the gentlemanly young profligate; while Hilda has to pay for her sacrifices made to pride and riches, by the misery and humiliation which could not but follow upon a marriage with a prematurely decrepid old man, without one single good or generous quality.

ST. VERONICA; OR, THE ORDEAL OF FIRE.

A BIOGRAPHY.

The Vestibule.

CHAPTER XIII.

I WAS by the side of Angus-both of us were on horseback-he taking his departure, and I accompanying him from Aula, whither we had returned, as far as to the gate of Volterra.

"You have some wish, perhaps," said Angus, breaking silence, "to know who I am. The last ruler of Ireland, of the Dalriad race, was my paternal ancestor. I am the head of a numerous clan. An independent, restless spirit has always governed me; from boyhood I have had a love of languages, accompanied with the desire to travel. I had Spanish forefathers; a circumstance which led me to sail at an early age from the Irish coast to that of Spain; thence I went to Portugal and France; finally, I made the tour of Germany,-learning the languages of these countries afresh. To read a book in a new tongue was at all times an easy task to me; it was by perusal that I learned what languages I know, stamping my knowledge by conversing, completing it by study. I enjoyed a singular faculty of seeing monuments in words: a derivation would often afford me a key to stores of hidden knowledge which related to the customs of the oldest races of earth.

"Having once left my native place, it was long before I was willing to return. I travelled in Egypt, Syria, and Italy; then, after going to many places a second time, I prepared to return home; but at this epoch my father died, and left me to follow my independent course. I next crossed to Sicily, saw Constantinople, wandered thence over Asia Minor and Greece; I visited, indeed, every part that was open to the adventurer, and looked well into the aspect of things, for my mind was vision. But, while yet young, I discovered with regret that I had beheld all that had been seen by others; therefore, possessed of health and strength, with probably a long life in prospect, I was induced to lay down a new system of travel, with a view, if possible, to accomplish the perambulation of the entire world.

"Nor was the range thus proposed too wide for the faculties with which nature had endowed me. My apprehension was so quick, that I learned all present things without effort; and such was my sense of order, that fragments of history or art fell into their right places in point of time and relation, under however fragmentary a form, or however abruptly they presented themselves to my eyes. My hearing, too, was as acute as the Arab's; and I could retain all that was said in a mixed company, although two, or even three, dialogues were proceeding at once. With these facilities of acquiring knowledge, and acquainted with a variety of languages, I had leisure to reflect on the past while I observed the present. I looked at every country I visited, not only as inhabited then, but as by successive races and generations. I was sometimes among the pre-ancients, sometimes with Greeks and Romans, at others amid those of a later age. And I could always realise the circumstance and paraphernalia of an epoch, no longer more than historic: the very monu

ments would recover their primitive forms, their flaws healing, their lichen and ivy scaling off. The rust of the helmet and armour would fly off as dust, and show me my face in their polished surface; the sarcophagus would return to the mason, the sleeping hero awake, and the fragments of the lance, as if never dissevered, would vibrate above his arm as he stood up. In truth, remains of antiquity were like the pages of a book to me, which vividly described things as they had been.

"Added to this susceptibility to impressions, my memory proved so true, that I remember every incident that has ever occurred to me through life as distinctly as if it had happened yesterday. Such my qualifications, I was induced to plan the ambitious scheme of travel which I have described.

"But to come to the point. Among other places, taking the route of Les Echelles, I visited the Grande Chatreuse. On my ascent thither I encountered a storm of so violent a kind, that I was forced to stop and take shelter. A house of a better description than is usually met with in those desolate regions offered itself to my choice, and I was hospitably entertained by the owner. There, you will be astonished to hear, I first saw your wife, and Evadne, who is now, as she was then, her companion. Adora at that time was a lovely child, in her tenth year, and under the guardianship of mine host, whose second wife, as I have since heard, was a Piccolomini, sister of the Marchioness of Ferrini, and of Donna Abarbanel, and who died without leaving issue. Don Abarbanel, the father of Adora, and an extraordinary personage, was an inmate of the monastery beyond.

"A strange incident led me to an acquaintance with the father of your wife, this same Abarbanel. On the morning after I had thus slept in the house of refuge, I was proceeding on my journey, and had passed more than one barrier amidst the awful scenes about me, when I arrived at a place where, on a cross, is written Via Cali. At a short distance thence, in a nook amidst the rocks, I saw two children, whom I recognised as the sons of the proprietor who had entertained me. These boys were fifteen years old, twin-born, and so exactly alike that they were only known apart by their dress. They had reached this Via Cali-but how employed? alas, in mortal combat. They resembled each other not in form only, but by nature; their dispositions were wicked; a community of character which, instead of inciting their minds to acts of sympathy, engendered between them incessant hate. Their infancy had been the least hostile period of their lives, the manifestation of dislike having been ever proportioned to the strength of their years; so, in due time, the unpromising youths attained to the vigour necessary to enable them to end the conflict. They were engaged with bludgeons, and with those rough weapons aimed furious blows at each other's head and breast. I shouted to them amidst the rush of waters, but my words did not reach their ears, and before I could get forward to the spot where they fought, one fell. I saw the survivor stand for a few moments over the fallen, and then, as if a sudden thought prompted him, he exchanged the collar he wore for his brother's, placed his own round the other's neck, and went on. Soon he turned his head to take one more look, when he saw me. he only quickened his pace; he then ran, and shortly vanished among the cliffs.

At first