the abbot of Glastonbury was called upon to surrender the Abbey to the king's officers; but the abbot sternly refused to submit to the demand of the king. The abbot therefore was seized, and dragged on a hurdle to the Tor-hill, and was hanged as a traitor to the king. The abbott's head was cut off and set upon the abbey gate; his body was then quartered, and one quarter sent to each of the following places-to Wells, Bath, Ilchester, and Bridgewater. Such were the barbarities that were formerly practised in England. The establishment was then broken up, and the abbey and lands bestowed upon a royal favourite.

Besides the remains of the church there also exists a building called the Abbot's Kitchen. This is an octagonal building-that is, a building having eight sidesit has a pyramidal roof, with a lantern top. Northeastward of Glastonbury is Tor-hill, cn the top of which stands the tower of Saint Michael, which serves as a land-mark to sailors in the Bristol Channel. The tower is seen in clear weather to a great distance in all directions. Where it stands a place of worship was erected in ancient times.

THE REVERSE OF FORTUNE.

A TRUE STORY.

No one, with an observing mind, can have passed forty years amid the eventful scenes of such a life as this, without witnessing occurrences more replete with romantic interest and instruction than any tale which the imagination can easily create. In the following narrative I have merely changed a few unimportant incidents to avoid any recognition, which might be unpleasant, of individuals connected with these facts.

Louisa Jones was the only child of a wealthy merchant, residing in one of the largest cities of our country. Her father had gone to the city when a boy, with no other capital than a good mind, energetic business habits, and a handsome, commanding person. It seemed to be his luck

in the lottery of life to draw a prize. He was eminently successful in business, acquired a high reputation for integrity, and talent, married into a wealthy family, forgot his humble origin, and became one of the moneyed aristocracy, the merchant nobility. He was proud, as such men are apt to be, lived in great splendour, and affected the manners of distance and reserve. Louisa had a fair share of beauty, a more than ordinary share of good common sense, and thanks to the teacher under whose care she had been placed, she had a truly accomplished education. In truth, it was the elevated character of her teacher, with whom for many years she passed several hours every day, that impressed her mind and formed her character. Her native good sense led her to appreciate the world in which he lived, the motives which influenced his conduct, and the views of life which in every lesson came glowing from his heart. Her father was all absorbed in business, and had no time to think of his daughter's moral or intellectual culture. He looked upon her fine form with paternal pride, and often his eye would glance over her costly robes and the gorgeously furnished parlours through which she moved, and a secret, unuttered satisfaction thrilled in his heart, as he thus contemplated the elevation which the poor farmer's boy had attained.

Her mother was as good a woman as a fashionable woman can be. She was gentle and kind-hearted. She loved her daughter, and wished to do everything in her power to promote her welfare. But she was the victim of the society in the midst of which she moved. Her talk was of prima donnas and bravuras, of fancy balls and of theatric heroes. She was indeed the " spouse of the worm and the sister of the clay." The midnight stars were to her eyes but spangles on a very pretty dome. Eternity was in her view simply a dull, repulsive word, which clergymen used in their sermons. Infinity was an idea of which she never dreamed of trying to form a conception; and immortality, that thought which is the richest inheritance of every soul awake to the true exaltation and dignity of its lineage and its destiny, was something which

she had a vague and painful idea she ought to think of before she should die. Poor Mrs. Jones! she was nothing but an amiable, kind-hearted, rich and fashionable woman. One evening returning from the opera, she took cold, and it settled upon her lungs; a fever ensued; she moaned, for a few days and nights, in delirium, upon her pillow, and died. What a catastrophe, for probationary life to end with one who, from the cradle to the grave, had never even entertained a single thought that life was intended as a scene of probation!

Mr. Jones was now fifty-five years of age. Louisa was nineteen. Instinctive love led her to shed many tears at the death and burial of her mother. But the loss of such a parent could not, by any possibility long be felt. She had never left any permanent impress upon her daughter's mind. Louisa soon again regained her wonted composure and cheerfulness, Mr. Jones began to look abroad for another wife, and Mrs. Jones was by all the world forgotten.

It is not strange that Louisa, with her personal and mental accomplishments, and being the heiress of so large a fortune, should find many admirers. She accepted the offered hand of a young gentleman in mercantile life, with very promising character and prospects, and the day for their bridals was appointed. Louisa had observed, with much solicitude, that her father for several weeks, had looked wan and careworn. He was taciturn at his meals, and with no appetite. She at first thought that it was grief for the death of her mother; but she soon had indubitable evidence, from the air of indifference with which he always alluded to her, that that loss was a sorrow which did not lay with any oppressive weight upon his heart.

One evening, Mr. Jones, after sitting in perfect silence for a couple of hours, apparently absorbed in thought, gazing upon the coal fire glowing in the grate, turned abruptly to Louisa, and with calm and despairing energy said, "Louisa, I am ruined." Then drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, and bowing his head, buried in it,

upon his knees, he wept and sobbed like a child. Louisa was amazed and bewildered, and tried to speak some words of consolation to her father; but she little knew what it was to be ruined. Mr. Jones had entered into some unfortunate speculations, and after months of the most desperate and agonizing endeavours to meet his liabilities, in which he found himself like a strong man struggling in the mire, ever sinking deeper and deeper, he had at last given up in utter despair—a hopeless bankrupt. It was beyond all possibility for him to meet his debts; he had already passed the meridian of life, and it was too late for him now even to hope to retrieve his fortunes. In a few words, the humbled and woe-stricken father related to his daughter the inextricable embarrassment of his affairs, and then, taking a light, retired to the pillow which sleep had so long refused to visit.

Louisa sat at the fire-side, lost in the most painful reverie, when the door bell rang, and the young gentleman to whom she was engaged was ushered into the parlour. She had noticed, for some time, that he had appeared rather singularly cold and reserved, but she thought that now trouble had come upon them, all the fountains of his love would be opened afresh. She immediately unbosomed to him all her cares and sorrows, and was cut to the heart with the apparently unfeeling spirit with which he listened to her tale. He was polite, most cruelly polite, but no words of consoling endearment fell from his lips, and he studiously seemed to refrain from any gesture even of sympathetic cares. At an hour earlier than usual, and with more formal civility than was his wont, he took leave of his impoverished friend. The ambitious young merchant had for some time heard rumours of the embarrassed situation of Mr. Jones, and in the spirit of that profit and loss calculation which governed his life, he hesitated to take to his bosom a dowerless bride.

This second blow was to Louisa the heaviest of all. The loss of money she could bear. She did not yet know the deprivations to which it would expose her. The treachery of a friend, to whom she had surrendered her

most sacred affections, caused every nerve of feeling to quiver with anguish. The clock tolled the hour of midnight, and found Louisa motionless as a statue at the fireside, and plunged into the deepest despair. In a few days she received a note from her false lover, informing her that circumstances, in his judgment, rendered it desirable that the connection between them should be dissolved. She

saw him no more.

There is no scene on earth more sorrowful than the gradual descent of a family from opulence to penury. One after another, friends drop off. One after another, luxuries and comforts and necessaries disappear. Furniture is sold, dresses are pawned; the wardrobe becomes scanty and threadbare; a meagre diet causes the cheek to grow pale and thin, and often such intense suffering ensues, that at last the humbled and broken spirit welcomes aid from the hand of charity. The proud spirit of Mr. Jones could not endure these humiliations. His mind sunk under the blow, and he became hopelessly imbecile-as helpless as a child, and all unconscious of the past, and thoughtless of the present or the future. And here was poor Louisa, the daughter of wealth, who had been nursed in the lap of every indulgence, and from the cradle surrounded with splendour and luxury and flattery, now penniless and friendless, with an idiotic father dependent upon her for support.

She now called to her aid that strength of character and those invaluable accomplishments of a highly cultivated mind, for which she was indebted to that faithful instructor who had taught her to appreciate the responsibilities of life, and who had nerved her to meet with a strong heart the waves of adversity. The heart of one neighbour sympathized with Louisa. But that neighbour, with a large family of his own to support, had no money to give. He could assist only with his sympathy and his counsel. But that assistance, to the friendless and inexperienced girl, was of priceless value. He aided her in obtaining three comfortable rooms in a comfortable house, and he became responsible for the rent. One room was for a school; another was her own snug bedroom, neatly furnished from the wreck of