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and uninteresting matter, much over-
mastering that which is pleasant
and attractive in the volume or
volumes, and will not undertake the
perusal, nor go to any trouble to
procure a copy.
To the archæolo-
gist and historian such works as the
History of Irish Periodical Litera-
ture," are of the greatest conse-
quence-invaluable, indeed; and to
its author, and to Archdeacon Cot-
ton, and to Mr. Gilbert, and to Dr.
Joly, is the gratitude of every intel-
ligent Irish reader, and every En-
glish-speaking historian and archae

ologist, due. Though we are not aware of any work of pretension published by Dr. Joly, he has made the Irish nation his debtor by the collection and preservation of thousands of valuable and scarce works, which would otherwise be lost or dispersed, and by their free gift to one of our public libraries. We mean, on another occasion, to entertain our readers, at Dr. Madden's expense, with the literary curiosities furnished by our metropolis during the eighteenth century.

[NOTE]

In the ample and comprehensive collection of medals in the possession of Jasper Robert Joly, Esq., LL.D., whose exertions for the weal of our national literature we have had occasion to allude to more than once, there are several illustrative of circumstances recorded in our article. Among others is a beautifully-executed one, struck by Cromwell's orders on his quasi pacification of Ireland, April 15-25, 1654. On the front Britannia and Hibernia are cordially embracing each other, one attended by her lion and thunderbolts, the other with her harp laid on her lap, and the following legend encircling the group :

MENTIBUS UNITIS, PRISCUS PROCUL ABSIT AMAROR, PILEA NE SUBITO PARTA,

CRUORE RUANT.

On the obverse are two stately ships (representing the two countries) side by side with two figures on the connecting gangway, grasping each other's hands. The legend runs thus:

LUXURIAT LUXURIAT GEMINO NEXU, EXCIPIT UNANIMES

TRANQUILLO SALO RES TOTIUS ORBIS AMOR.

The execution of the medal, of which there is probably no other copy in Ireland, is of the most delicate and masterly character.

EARLSCOURT; OR, SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND..

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE CURSE OF THE CLAVERINGS."

CHAPTER XV.

SIR LIONEL DARCY was buried. The first snow-shower of that winter fell thickly and silently as the stately procession wound through the park, bearing to his last home the man who had so lately lived and suffered amongst us.

It was a very dreary day. I spent it alone in my room; and as evening closed in, and I knew that the guests had departed, I sought Hubert in the library. We had spoken little together since I had read Sir Lionel's tale. I longed now to hear what husband intended to do; whether he meant to seek out Sir Lionel's daughter himself, or whether he had instructed the lawyer to do so.

my

I found Hubert alone. He sat gazing moodily into the fire, and started when I entered as if I had roused him from deep thought. Lights were burning on the table. The heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows, excluding the wintry scene on which I had been sadly gazing from my own apart

ment.

I felt an unconscious relief in knowing that the long sad week was ended, that the funeral was over, that the light of day might once more visit the chambers. I had felt everything so strange around me during that week. Everything connected with death was so new to me. I had been left almost entirely alone; and since I had read Sir Lionel's tale, my thoughts had been confused and troubled. I longed now to be with my husband as we were wont to be together, to feel

that I was near him in heart, sharing his every thought. There had been something very unapproachable about Hubert that week. I had fancied at first that it must be his sorrow for his brother's loss that made me feel him for the moment almost estranged from me. Since I had known that Earlscourt was no longer his inheritance, I had felt that his bitter disappointment had probably caused him to seek a solitude which was generally unpleasing to him, that he might consider the startling change in his position, and learn in solitude to contemplate it calmly. Now, however, I wished to reassume my place with him, to comfort him; and although he scarcely seemed to rouse himself to welcome me, I seated myself near him, and tried to make him enter into conversation with me. After various unsuccessful efforts, finding that he relapsed into silence each time that his short answers to my questions had been given, I too remained silent, lost in thought. I was thinking of our little child. Hubert turned suddenly towards me, and spoke after a long interval.

66

Ellinor, what are we to do?" I only looked at him inquiringly. I did not exactly know to what he alluded.

"Have you considered the hateful position in which we are placed?" he continued; "we have literally not a shilling, excepting your little income. All the arrangements which Lionel made in h will being cancelled by this ext ordinary disclo

sure, I have absolutely nothing. I have hitherto been entirely dependant on Lionel, by some strange mismanagement on the part of those who preceded us. Heaven knows that he never allowed me to feel that it was dependence. He treated me like his son, and I never had cause to feel that I owed everything to him until by this last act he has cast us from luxury to penury. What are we to do, Ellinor?

"I cannot tell, Hubert," I answered, and I felt very disconslate as I heard him speak. "Let us go to Ilcombe at once. My aunt will advise us; she will assist us. Let us go and bring Lionel home at once."

Hubert looked round the luxurious room in which we were sitting before he answered me.

"Let us go and bring our child home," he said bitterly, "to give him one last glance of the inheritance to which he was born, before we take him to the miserable home that must be ours henceforth ?"

"Not miserable, dear Hubertnot miserable when we are together; and Lionel is too young to know the change. I am thankful for that." "But how shall we feel, Ellinor, as Lionel grows up, when we think of what he should have been, and then look on what he is? Think what it will be to find it difficult even to educate him properly. What a hateful position-a Baronet and a beggar !"

66

"But, Hubert," I ventured to say, we cannot tell what Sir Lionel's daughter may do.

"I will not be indebted to a musician's wife," he answered fiercely. "No: we shall leave Earlscourt; we shall take our child with us, and go with our little pittance to another country. I shall not remain in England."

"Not remain in England!" I exclaimed. "Hubert, do not say so. Do not leave our own country. Wait until we have seen my aunt.'

"Were your aunt to place at my disposal all that she possesses, I would not remain in England now. You may remain at Ilcombe, if you like, Ellinor. You may remain there with your child, and I will go away alone. Miserable and disappointed, as I am, I am not likely to make you happy, there or anywhere else now."

"Hubert, why do you speak to me so unnaturally? I will go anywhere. I do not care where we go. Do not say that you could go away without me, Hubert. Is this disappointment to change your love for me ?"

"It changes everything in me and around me," he replied. "It makes me wish that I had never asked you to join your fate to mine. It makes me see nothing in the future but a dreary waste-struggles, difficulties, anxieties, miseries. Love does not often survive these trials, Ellinor, and these are what we go to if we quit Earlscourt."

I threw my arms round him, and I tried to speak comfort to him. His words fell heavily on my heart. If he so dreaded the future, how could I be brave? I felt the changeless nature of my own love; but I felt that if his love changed, my strength would give way. I rested on him and his affection, and it was terrible to hear him foretel such a future. He hardly returned my caresses. He relapsed into thought, and when he next spoke, it was in a whisper.

"There is one way of escaping from all this, Ellinor," he said. "And what is that, Hubert ?" I asked eagerly.

He looked silently into my face for a moment, then drawing me nearer to him, he whispered again.

"No human being knows of that paper, excepting yourself and me."

I returned his gaze. I did not understand him.

"No one has any idea of the existence of this dat ghter of Lionel's.

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Let us

"Think of our child, Ellinor," he said pleadingly. "Let us regard all this as a dream. One little week ago we knew nothing of it. destroy the paper and forget it." 1 am not going to repeat here all that followed these words. Were 1 to repeat my entreaties, my expostulations, it would seem as if I refused now to bear my due share of the guilt. It would seem as if I wished to cast all the sin on my husband's head. And I do not. What matters it that I threw myself at his feet, and implored him to cast the black temptation from him? What matters it that, in frantic words, I told him that we should give an inheritance of sin and shame to our unconscious child? What matters it that I clung to him in agony as determination darkened on his brow, and told him that the very thought of such guilt was clouding his features even then with the shadow of coming remorse? What matters all that now? My words must have been weak. My purpose must have been feeble, or I must have prevailed. Why did I

ever yield? Why did I not cling to him until I had extorted his promise? Why did I not paint to him, in words to which he must have listened, the life to which he was condemning us both? the undying remorse the ceaseless agony of the years before us? He had said that it should be a dream. Why did I not tell him how that hideous dream would haunt us, and surround our steps with spectres from the past? He had said that we must forget it. Why did I not tell him that there is no forgetfulness for the sinner-there is no Lethe for a guilt-stained conscience? Why did I not force him to follow me to that little chamber hung with black, and make him meet those flashing eyes that threatening, indignant glance? I could read that glance now. It demanded tardy justice for her child. When he spoke of our little innocent child, why did I not, with the might of a mother's love, tell him that the sins of the parents would be visited on the child? When he threatened me with the loss of his own lovewith the misery of seeing him a wretched, disappointed man, why did I not cast myself on his breast, and tell him that mine should be the blessed task to comfort him in his sorrow, and that, strong in my holy love, I felt that I should not fail?

"Why did I yield whilst voice was left to me? I cannot look longer on that dreadful night. I remember his taking that paper in his hand. I remember the strange expression of his countenance as he held it one moment irresolute. I remember my own last entreaty. I remember my anguish. I remember that I knelt before him in mute agony.

"The paper was destroyed-and the darkness of night fell on my soul as I left the library that night, and traversed the galleries of my future home of my boy's inheritance— Earlscourt.

CHAPTER

THERE were six months of strict mourning at Earlscourt after Sir Lionel's death.

During these six months, slowly but surely the tie which had hitherto bound Hubert and myself together was severed. I do not mean that my love for him was extinguished. It lived through sorrows and struggles for long years afterwards; but one by one the pursuits, the tastes, the habits which we had hitherto shared, were cast aside tacitly, and a great gulf seemed to open between us. My husband's very nature seemed to be changed. He shunned my society-he was never unkind, but I felt that he avoided me.

Could I wonder at it? No longer could we look fearlessly into each other's heart and eyes--never again might we beguile the hours by imparting to each other visions of long years of happiness in store for us. Guilt and shame filled our hearts, and crushed down the trusting love which had hitherto reigned there, and it seemed at that time as if we both felt that our burden was less intolerable when we were apart. When we were together I felt that the unnatural silence between us was oppressive.

It was a very dreary winter. Sometimes in our child's presence a gleam of sunshine might enter our home; but it was transient, and the gloom which succeeded it seemed deeper than before.

For many weeks together incessant snowstorms prevailed, and I could seldom leave the house. No weather retained Hubert by my side. It was his custom that winter to remain alone in the library during the morning, and then to go out either on horseback or on foot, and remain for many hours. He would return to a late dinner, worn out and silent. The short evening would pass either in silence, or in forced efforts at

XV I.

conversation, which was worse; and when the clock struck eleven I would hasten to my chamber, thankful that the day was gone, and weep over my changed existence.. My happy days seemed already far away in the past. They were bitter tears that bathed my pillow during that winter.

Once only was the subject of our crime spoken of between us. It was the first and the last time that I ventured to approach it.

Lionel had been ill. Some childish ailment had assumed a serious form; and during several days and nights we watched by his little cot, scarce thinking that he could recover. Hubert's love for his boy in those days was idolatry. I cannot attempt to describe his suffering during these days of anxiety. I could speak no comfort to him, for without that child what must my miserable life be? If he died, my future would not bear contemplation.

I think that we both clung to his innocence as a refuge from our guilt. I have read of a guilty woman whose terror and remorse were wont to rise to agony during a thunderstorm; and as the storm increased she would clasp an innocent child in her arms, and find a fancied security in that embrace.

Our child was spared; and when the danger was over, and Hubert had led me to my own room to seek the repose which I so greatly needed, and ere he left me, stooped to kiss me with something of the tenderness of past days, I threw my arms round him, and made one effort to struggle out of our misery.

"Hubert, let us leave Earlscourt. Let us give it up to the rightful owner."

His softened countenance darkened, and with a vehemence which terrified me, and words which I never again dared to brave, he forbade me ever again to touch on that subject,

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