by nature with all that was requisite to render him amiable-possessed of every advantage that education and fortune could bestow-born under the happiest auspices, and surrounded on his outset in life by friends affectionate and anxious in the extreme for his advancement in it; he had not advanced far in his career ere he found himself rapidly descending into the vale of adversity, and others as rapidly ascending to the summit of prosperity, who, from the early disadvantages under which they had laboured, he could not have supposed would have been able to have made a successful effort to approach it.

Of these, the chances and changes of this mortal state, the little fortitude man would have to support himself beneath them, but for the strength and consolation derived from religion, Captain Munro deeply pondered, as he journeyed from Glengary Castle, the residence of his father, towards his own.

The day was far advanced when he remounted his horse at the ancient gateway

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of the castle, for the last time he was inclined to believe, as no consideration whatever should induce him again he determined to seek a reconciliation with his father, so cruelly, so insultingly had his overtures for one been now rejected.

Rain also fell in torrents, and the wind swept in hollow gusts over the heath, driving before it the withered burrs, and making the old trees, that scantily dotted the soil, groan beneath its fury.

But notwithstanding the resentment which glowed in his breast-notwithstanding the violence of the tempest to which he was exposed, Captain Munro, on reaching the top of a hill that afforded a view of his native home, could not prevent himself from checking his horse, in order to indulge himself with another view of it-yes, indulge'; for though it no longer afforded him a shelter, he could not forget the happy days in which it had done so; and the remembrance of these made him feel something of that kind of pleasure in gazing on it, he would have done in contemplating the fea

tures of an old friend. The idea of his departed mother, the tenderest of parents, the most amiable of women, was associated with every view, with every recollection of it. He sighed as her memory now revived in his mind, and involuntarily thought what she must suffer, if departed spirits were allowed to review the transactions of this world, at the shameless scenes now passing in the mansion to which she had given consequence and estimation.

"But heaven," exclaimed he, suddenly and aloud, with an outstretched arm and uplifted eyes, "heaven would not be heaven, were the cares, the inquietudes of this life to gain admission to it. No-all there is peace and joy; no tear is in the eye, no sorrow in the heart, to engender one. Happy state of rest; happy he, be his troubles what they may, whose conscience insures him such.-Oh God!" he continued, with increasing fervour, "let me never be deprived of this last consolation; though happiness may be denied me here, let me never despair of it hereafter.—Nor

will I despair of it here," he added, after a pause; "for to despair, is to doubt the goodness of that Being who has promised to befriend those that put their trust in him. As the sun shall again look forth in all his beauty upon these now streaming fields; as the clouds which veil the heavens will be dispersed, so will I hope for the restoration of prosperity, and the dispersion of the clouds that now obscure my horizon."

He cast another lingering look at old Glengary (as he styled the castle), and rode on. While he pursues his journey, we shall take a retrospective view of his life.

Captain Robert Munro was the only child of a Scotch gentleman of considerable property, and who bestowed on him an education suitable to his prospects. Disliking a life of idleness for him, in consequence of the dissipation he had known such to occasion, he intended him for one of the learned professions: this intention proved by no means agreeable to the young gentleman; he possessed an ardent temper,

an enthusiastic imagination, had heard, like Douglas, of battles, and longed to follow to the field some warlike lord-in short, he was too much fired, by what he had heard of the deeds of heroes, not to resolve on seeking, like them, to immortalize himself in the fields of the valiant. His father warmly opposed this resolution; but, although his mother dreaded the dangers attached to a military life, the constant and animated pleadings of this her adored son, by degrees obtained her acquiescence to his wishes; she became his advocate, and soon prevailed on his father to purchase a commission for him in a marching regiment, which, shortly after he had entered, was ordered on foreign service. During the period of his continuance abroad, young Munro visited various climates, and had ample experience of the dangers and hardships incidental to his profession, but which neither damped his spirit, nor for an instant caused him to regret the one he had chosen. This, however, was by no means the case with his parents; they never