then took you, knew nothing of the provision to be received for you from the convent. The vicaire had been into the convent of St. Clare and had heard there part of the information with which he astonished me, from a nun who had cherished a friendship for Marie, and who unceasingly lamented her fate, the rest he had gathered in the vicinity of Rougemont. He had kept the secret for twenty-five years, but now drawing nigh the grave, and the superior of St. Clare having departed to that place where the wicked cease from troubling,' he felt constrained to disclose it to me. "And still my portion was anguish! The son whom as a stranger I had nurtured, and educated, and loved, where was he? I had suffered him to quit my roof perhaps for ever! Whither should I go in search of him? I knew his stubborn pride (forgive me the expression) so well that I could not hope for his voluntary return to me even though he should be reduced to the utmost state of necessity. He had refused the money I offered to him too-he had thrown himself on the world without friends-without a profession-without any likely means of subsistence. What might not his rashness cause him to have to endure! "The vicaire died in my house. Years have since rolled on and I have heard nothing of you. My heart yearns to see you!-offspring of my unforgotten love! "Another, and still another year, and no tidings of you, my son! You have been bred up in luxury-how will you be able to endure the hardships of an unequal struggle for the bare elements which sustain life? But what say I?-you may have already sunk under that struggle, and be now laid in the dust! Something whispers to me that it is so, and that I shall never again see you! My eyes must be closed by strangers! I must descend to the tomb unmourned! "I resume with a renewed hope, that one day this record of my sorrows, and of your mother's fate, will meet your view. A lingering illness has wasted me to mere skin and bone. Detroit, once your tutor, has cheered me through the dark season by reading to and conversing with me, he has even spent nights at my side. Hopeless of ever beholding you again, I made him my heir. But to-day, one of the servants who has been to Quebec, brings me tidings that one Leonard Anderson has twice served as a common sailor, and since then as a second and first mate, in an emigrant vessel, under a Captain Barry, between the Canadas and the British Islands. He gives me to understand that he knows this Leonard Anderson to be yourself, and that you are now a first mate in that vessel. God be thanked for this news! You are alive, and have made your way to an honourable, if not distinguished, place in society. I shall not have to grieve for your fall into a vicious way of life. "Two more weary years have gone by-my hair is turning white with age-my home is still a desolate place. I can hear no more of you. Detroit has changed his manners to me since I made him my heir. He knows not that I have heard any thing of you. I suspect him of assuming a friendship for me he never felt, that he might gain my estates. He has deceived me grosslythere is no trust to be put in man. I am fated to suffer to the last hour of my life. Notwithstanding, he shall not be deceived by me-I shall revoke my will in your favour, but I shall bequeath to him a mainte Here the narrative seemed to have ceased for a long period. It was concluded in a few lines evidently penned with the altered and tremulous hand of extreme age, of which the ink appeared quite fresh and black. "My last hope of seeing thee, my son, has withered entirely. Hitherto I have delayed altering my will, deterred partly by the arguments of Detroit, who would persuade me that you are dead. But I feel certain indications that this house of clay, this body of mine, is about to crumble into its native dust, and I dare no longer defer that only act of fatherly love which I can show you. Next month I shall have seen ninety summers. I have drawn up a will with what knowledge of law I possess, appointing you your natural inheritance; and to-morrow, for the first time during half a century, I quit Rougemont to pay a farewell visit to an old fellow soldier of mine, who lives two hundred miles off, in what the English call the Upper Province. There I shall be freed from the influence of Detroit, which, I am ashamed to say, has been too strong in its rule over me latterly, and there I shall see this last will of mine properly completed by some good lawyer. "I may never return to Rougemont again-if I do not, let me here bid you a tender, a long farewell. You will see your mother's grave-I have put no monument over it-the grass has grown upon it without check— but never was there one which has been watered with more tears. If ever you come to this place, or your children, let them receive, with my blessing, this my solemn request-that they lay her bones with mine!" Clinton dressed, and went with quickness into his father's chamber, which was the same the Marquis had formerly occupied. The Pirate stood beside the window, looking out in a thoughtful attitude. He expressively grasped the hand of his son, and pointed to a venerable elm tree, at a little distance from the house, beneath which the mossy sod exhibited a slight prominence—there was Marie's grave. The two gazed on it in silence, then conversed awhile on the contents of the manuscript; after which, hearing Jane's voice, they proceeded to the breakfast room, both eager to communicate to her the melancholy story of the Marquis and the nun of St. Clare, and to visit with her the unpretending resting place of Marie Verche. CHAPTER XXV. "And yet she loved With that intense affection, that deep faith, Which knows no change, and sets but o'er the tomb !"-Swun. LADY Hester, with her friends, reached in safety the country seat of the earl her father in England. The arrival of the lovely and distinguished peeress, and her widowhood, were at once made known to the highest circles through the medium of the fashionable journals of the day. Immediately she was inundated by cards, and notes, and letters, of condolence and of compliment. A host of titled and coroneted visiters besieged her retirement, employing all the artillery of polite blandishment to win her to reappear in the sparkling scenes of aristocratic dissipation. But Lady Hester was invulnerable. She carried within her bosom a talisman which rendered impotent all their assaults. Former suitors were among their number, whose hopes the Colonel's death had revived, and found their plans for procuring the honour of her smiles fruitless. At first their calls were answered by the mortifying intelligence that Lady Hester could not see company at present, and then, that |