jocularly, will please to signify the same by holding up their hands.' A perfect sea of palms waved in the air, among which might be distinguished the rose-tipped fingers of the fair young widow. All the removed prisoners were now brought in, and informed of the royal clemency; whereupon there arose such a hurricane of applause, that it shook the monarch's hail-magazine up in the mountains; and a storm ensued that was long remembered as an epoch by the inhabitants of that country-side. What boots it to describe the jovial doings that followed-how the wassail bowl went round; how joke, and song, and hearty laughter shook the frozen walls of the ancient hall; and how the jocund monarch led off the dance with the lovely widow, concluding the festivities by snatching a kiss under his mistletoe sceptre from the lips of the beautiful maiden of face-slapping notoriety, without so much as eliciting a pout? COMMERCIAL EXCITEMENTS, AND COMMERCIAL CRISES. Or the evils of commercial bubbles, arising from crude speculation, cupidity, or a spirit of gambling, whereby the ignorant, the unwary, and more frequently the avaricious, are entangled in meshes from which extrication is hopeless till ruin surrounds them, there cannot be a question; but such manias must never be confounded with commercial activity, even should this sometimes terminate in individual ruin and temporary national suffering. The benefits which have been conferred on Britain through the speculative spirit of our countrymen, are admirably brought out in the following paper, read by Mr Francis, the well-known author of the 'History of the Bank of England,' at the monthly meeting of the Banking Institute, held in London on 12th October last. Mr Francis said, the paper which I shall have the pleasure of submitting to your notice, on commercial excitements and commercial crises, is partially to raise a question and partially to offer an opinion. By a commercial crisis, I do not merely mean that particular state of affairs which for a few days excites alarm, lowers prices, and then dies away, being known popularly as a panic in the money market; but I wish to take a broader and more extended view of the subject, and to remember that a panic, denominated a commercial crisis, is but the result of some previous and prosperous period, which must be taken into due consideration. The fear of a commercial crisis has become a superstition. The banker and the merchant alike regard it with dread, whilst the legislator passes acts of parliament to prevent it, as if there were something unnatural in an accumulated capital forming new markets, or as if members of parliament could change the laws of nature by the laws of man. The topic is one of peculiar interest to our own class, and, in venturing to suggest that the financial excitements and panics which from time to time have been recorded have been productive of much good in their ulterior results, it is not because the evil which they have created is denied, but because it is probable the evil has been too exclusively considered, and that the good which has followed has been almost, if not entirely, forgotten. For I need not tell you that, in business as out of business, we are prone to forget the good we receive, and magnify the evil we endure. It need not be said that panics, the results of commercial crises, are now fairly naturalised among us. Some political economists there are who say that we owe them to what has been called the devilish bill of Sir Robert Peel in 1819; but, in truth, they were patent to the country a century before, for they occurred in 1694, in 1720, in 1772, in 1783, 1793, 1797, 1808, 1811, 1816, 1825, 1835, 1889, and the last, not least, in 1847. We have seen them, and we have suffered by them; and although it would be wrong to attempt to deny the sad and even terrible consequences of those epochs, I yet am willing to believe that if the good did not outbalance the evil, at least that the shield has a white as well as a black side; and taking only the one broad view of the question, that Great Britain, which has so often been said to be ruined by these financial crises, has yet made more progress than any country in the world, I think there are sufficient grounds for a consideration of the opinion advanced-an opinion which, after all, is but an elaboration of Shakspere's fine truth, that there is a soul of good in all things evil.' You need not be told that public companies are necessarily included in the consideration of my topic. They are the offspring of commercial excitements. Mr Gilbart, writing in 1847, says, 'this is the age of public companies; ' but I hope to show that, if it be the age, it is not especially so, and that they have always been a popular and favourable mode of investing English capital. I will not refer to our old guilds, but to the ancient corporations which at one time engrossed the chief business of the country. So early as 1294, there were ten companies, to whom our monarchs looked for money, and who were in return allowed a monopoly of various trades. One of these farmed the customs of England, paying £20 a-day, or about £6240 yearly, for that which produces now 21 millions. The discoveries by the Portuguese and Spanish adventurers of those lands in which the gold of the native was only equalled by the bloodguiltiness of the discoverers, created a movement in trade very like those animated periods in our own history which we have read of, and especially resembling that through which we are now passing. The form which this excitement took 300 years ago was the joint-stock company. These, endowed with special privileges, became very numerous, were of the utmost service in introducing the trade of the country to new lands, and in undertaking commercial maritime expeditions, which could only have been compassed by the capital of a great and united body. I know that these companies are now regarded almost as mythic, or at least as monopolies which, long passed away, ought never to have been granted; but an examination of their proceedings will prove that they were missionaries in the cause of commerce, and pioneers in the cause of civilisation; that they discovered new lands, and introduced us to their trade; that they penetrated the interior of old countries, and purchased mercantile privileges by personal suffering. To be a member of one of these companies then, was something like being a director of the East India Company now. It was sought as an honour by all the first-class merchants, because they received very important privileges from being admitted of the various bodies of merchant adventurers. These companies arose from commercial excitements; and to convince you that they have been a public good, I will recall to your recollection that the Russia Company fairly opened the important trade we now enjoy with the Baltic, and that it produced great and exclusive benefits for the English merchant. The Turkey Company followed, opened the trade with the Bosphorus, proving of the utmost im portance to our commerce; and though Adam Smith called it an oppressive monopoly' in 1770, yet this is only another evidence that the benefit of one century may be the bane of the next. I will not weary you further than to repeat that these, with the East India Company, the African Company (which traded to the coast of Guinea), the Hamburgh, the Greenland, the Hudson's Bay Company, are all additional proofs that the virtues of public companies were recognised centuries ago; and that they all successively arose during an excitement caused by abnormal years; and they also tend to prove that then, as at a later period, an accumulated capital found in these companies at once a new vent for its gains and a new channel for adventure. And the commercial excitements of the last century have so increased the system, that we owe all our great works to them. 'Public companies,' says Mr Gilbart, now occupy a distinguished place in our social economy. We receive our education in schools and colleges founded by public companies. We commence active life by opening an account with a banking company. We insure our lives and property with an insurance company. We avail ourselves of docks and harbours, bridges and canals, constructed by public companies. One company paves our streets, another supplies us with water, and a third enlightens us with gas. If we wish to travel, there are railway companies, and steam-boat companies, and navigation companies, ready to whirl us to every part of the earth; and when, after all this turmoil, we arrive at our journey's end, cemetery companies wait to receive our remains and take tidings of our bones.' Such being the case, I beg to remind you that to financial epochs we owe these many benefits, and that, at each period of financial excitement, men with minds in advance of their day have brought forward new ideas, which, ridiculed and rejected at the time, have ultimately been very successful. For it is not because a new idea seems to pass away that it is lost. The laws of God are as fixed in commerce as in nature. No great design arises in its full fruition at once. First the blade, and then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear; and this order has been maintained with all the great mercantile designs of which we shall have to treat. servants, and this idea, I have every reason to believe, originated the earliest guarantee fund. At this period, there was also proposed a company for the insurance and improvement of children's fortunes-an idea now carried out with great satisfaction. There was a company for insuring debts-and this proposition has lately been mooted, and may possibly be successful. There was a plan for a mutual marine assurance; and when we reflect how well the mutual principle has worked with lives, it is not utterly impossible to work it equally well with ships. Nor would it be very surprising to see this plan taken up by some bold projector, endeavouring to benefit in 1852, by the rejected proposal of 1720. There were insurance companies against housebreaking and highwaymen; and I do not know why laws similar to those which regulate life should not also regulate robbery. Of course, these proposals were pronounced worthless; but the life and the fire companies were ridiculed also, and these we know are tried and true. On the former it was remarked : Come all ye generous husbands with your wives, While, with regard to the fire companies, it was said:- Since all the elements are bubbles made; The earliest example to be named is one with which you are intimately acquainted. Prior to 1694, the want of a great bank had been felt. At various periods presumed to be favourable to their adoption, certain plans for a corporate bank had been proposed. For many years William Paterson had registered such a project in his great brain; and for many years, too, abortive efforts had been made to establish it; but it was not until a very general commercial excitement in 1694 had stimulated men's minds, and disposed them to risk their money, that the corporation to which I am proud to belong came with its capital and its credit to support a Protestant government and a new dynasty. And to this period we are indebted for other banking ideas, which were then held but lightly, but which have since been adopted. Among them, a bank of credit. Now this, with the advanced financial knowledge of 1850, is legitimate enough; but, in 1694, it was a heretical in-Any persons,' says an advertisement of the day, 'by road on the orthodoxy of banking. And yet this bank only proposed to do what has since been done by all bankers-receiving money in London, and granting letters of credit in various parts of England; and this was certainly more necessary during a period of unsafe travelling than now. Thus the first movement was made in jointstock banking during this commercial crisis; the first joint-stock bank was established, and a new thought thrown out, to be carried into effect a century later. In 1720 there was another period of excitement; and to this we are indebted for some new ideas on the principle of assurance, which are not even yet adopted, and to which I will presently refer. In the meantime let me rescue the South Sea era from the prevalent opinion that all the companies were fallacious. Instead of this, there were not 10 per cent. of bubbles in proportion to the legitimate proposals which a succeeding generation has sanctioned. There were twelve for fisheries; there were twelve for insurances; there were four water companies; there were eleven for trading with America; there were ten for the improvement of land; there were four for making harbours and forming or improving rivers; there were eight for manufacturing silks and muslins; there were fifteen for the advancement or production of metals; and there were scores of others equally just in principle. Some of the companies sound curious enough. Thus for planting mulberry-trees and breeding silk-worms in Chelsea Park may appear utopian; but here the intentions were honest, as 2000 trees were actually planted, and many expensive edifices erected. For building hospitals for bastard children seems a strange commercial speculation; and for importing a number of large jackasses from Spain, in order to propagate a superior kind of mule in England, equally 80. But it was meant to be acted on, as I find that marsh lands were bought near Woolwich, by a clergyman who was deeply interested in this proceeding. You have heard that twelve insurance companies were brought forward, the first great movement being made in this principle, and the first idea of several modes and methods of assurance which are now in existence being then suggested. One was called an insurance against losses by I do not give these for the force of their satire, but because they prove that both life and fire assurance were regarded by the public as absurd and impracticable, although destined at a later period to be among the most important institutions of the land. During this period, further ideas on the subject of assurance were started. paying 2s. on their entrance for a policy and stamps, and 2s. towards all marriages till their own, when the number is full, will secure to themselves £200.' Another was called a baptismal assurance, in which each subscriber was to pay 2s. 6d. towards each infant baptised, until he had one of his own, when he was to receive £200—a tempting inducement to the honours of paternity. If I appear somewhat urgent on the subject of assurance, it is because we owe it in a very decided manner to commercial excitements; and because I can fortify my opinion of its importance with that of Mr De Morgan, who says, "Though its theory has as yet been only applied to the reparation of the evils arising from storm, fire, premature death, and diseased old age, yet there is no placing a limit to the extensions which its applications might receive, if the public were fully aware of its principles, and of the safety with which it might be practised.' Another beneficial result of the periods to which your attention is drawn may be found in the fact that men give more liberally. It is a most notable truth, that after a somewhat close investigation of the subject, about 30 per cent. of the charities of England appear to have emanated directly or indirectly from similar periods. Nor is this very wonderful. A full purse often makes a full heart. A man with a good account at his banker's has a character to maintain; and, more than that, Providence has so ordained that it is our interest to give. It happens, therefore, sometimes that the money which is made by a bubble becomes a tangible fact, and not the least of the advantages which arose from the South Sea scheme was the huge endowment of Guy's Hospital by Thomas Guy. The purchase of seamen's tickets, and the speculations in South Sea stock, were turned by the shrewd Bible contractor to great account. One of his biographers says, 'from the South Sea bubble, with characteristic tact, he drew off in time with his gains, being one of the few whom that gi gantic fraud and folly benefitted.' £220,000 was the residue he left for its use; and, when we remember that the annual income of the hospital he founded is now £25,000, how great an amount of good to the poor and the sick is included in these figures! 7 docks capital, £12.202,000 16 water companies 4 bridges capital, £2,452.000 27 gas 7 roads 7 various 1,630 000 495.000 1,530.000 Before I conclude with this epoch, let me once more al- 63 canals lude to the facts that numbers of the projects of 1720 were founded on sound mercantile principles. For raising hemp and flax at home; for bringing pure water to LonOf the canals, the Trent and Mersey paid a dividend of don; for the improvement of refining sugar, were surely 75 per cent. per annum; the Coventry Canal paid 44; the not impracticable benefits. Nor, though the company for Stafford and Worcester, 40; the Mersey and Irwell, 35 making silver from lead was especially ridiculed, and per cent.; the Oxford 32; the Forth and Clyde, 25. though it afforded many a joke about the transmutation of Seventeen others gave dividends varying from 20 to 10 per metals and the philosopher's stone, the company was not cent.; twenty paid from 10 to 5 per cent.; while thirteen really absurd in what it proposed to do. For I find in a paid dividends varying from 5 per cent. to nothing, or were paper read before the Antiquarian Society, that for several so good as not be in the market. Of the dock companies, centuries silver had been extracted from lead, and that it the Commercial paid 84; the London, 44; the West India, 10 was the subject of at least one legal enactment. Only six per cent.; the assurance companies, again, paid dividends teen years before this company was started, Macpherson, varying from 10 per cent. downwards; while the water comspeaking of the Mine Adventurers' Company, says, ' From panies, in one or two instances, were worth rather less than lead they extracted considerable quantities of silver;' nothing, although in many others a few shares formed a forwhile Mr M Culloch calculates the entire produce of silver tune. Independently, therefore, of the fact that public comfrom lead to be 200,000 ounces. Yet what a fruitful subject panies had provided canals and roads for our commerce, of wit was this making of lead into silver, for Swift docks to receive our merchandise, insurance companies to and the smaller deer of the day! Another positive benefit comfort our widows and children, water companies to cleanse also arose; the working of tin plates, which had previously us, and gas to light us, you have the fact and you, as been effected in Germany only, came then first into ope- financers, will think it very important-that these comration in England, by means of one of these said bubble panies produced good dividends to the proprietors; and companies, and has ever since formed a somewhat impor- all these we owed to preceding periods of excitement. tant branch of our mechanical operations. And all these The natural result of such success is to be found in the favourable symptoms are to be lost sight of, because a few proposals of 1825. In taking a retrospect of the schemes people outrage common sense, because there was one com- which were promulgated with a view to discover their pany for the insurance of female chastity, and another feasibility, we shall find that many of them were eminently against death by drinking Geneva; because there was one successful, and that they produced results which can only proposal for manufacturing sawdust into deal boards with- pass away with time. First and foremost, let it never be out knots, and another for a general fishery for gudgeons. forgotten that it opened free trade in banking, and that it The next era to which I would call your attention is 1793. produced joint-stock banks. It made an irruption into the And here it seems as if we were reading a newspaper of a privileges of the Bank of England charter-privileges few years since. The first bankruptcy which created which Lord Liverpool truly said were growing out of suspicion, says Chalmers, was that of Donald & Burton. fashion, and which were of no avail to themselves, while They were, probably, what Cowper calls 'rogues in grain,' they only injured others. The testimony is abundant as as they failed in consequence of corn speculations. On to the evils of the country banking establishments. You Tuesday evening,' continues the same authority, the know that, by the law, as it then stood, for the protection bank threw out the paper of Lane, Son, & Fraser, and of the Bank of England, the number of partners in any next morning they stopped payment to the amount of al- banking house was limited to six. There might be less, most a million.' There were 500 bankruptcies recorded said the wisdom of our ancestors, but there must not be in six months, and 100 country bankers failed. These, more. These might be butchers or bakers, cobblers or with their collateral evils, were certainly terrible occur- cheesemongers, or they might be Killarney saddlers, such rences at the time, and we can all sympthise, for we have as Mr Gilbart has told us of; they might be ignorant of all seen something very like it; but, if we look back, we banking as the wares they sold; yet the law said, there shall find that for many years prior to this period capital shall no bounds be put on your issues; you may emit had been unlocked-men were seeking for fresh sources your notes, and deceive the poor and provident, but ignoof investment. The crisis of 1807 and 1810 produced rant, man as much as you can; but if more than six unite, also special results. Life assurance societies were again although you represent the land, the wealth, and the intelincreased. In 1805 only nine were in existence, and they ligence of your district, you shall not give your country. were chiefly proprietary; but from 1806 to 1808 only men the benefit of your science, your capital, and your nine more were established. This period, also, stimu- knowledge. lated us to build bridges. Among the chief architectural glories of London, says the Athenæum,' are her bridges. Rome can boast of a finer church, Berlin a nobler museum, Paris much grander palaces, but what capital of Europe can show such structures as span the waters of the Thames between Vauxhall and the Custom-house?' Canova declared that it was worth a journey all the way from Rome only to see Waterloo Bridge. And it is to this period that three of these structures owe their formation, Vauxhall, Waterloo, and Southwark being then originated; and these we have seen, though failures as mere mercantile speculations, were important additions to the grandeur of the kingdom. And, more than this, they circulated, in work, wages, and material, nearly two and a half millions sterling; and many an artisan for many a year had cause to bless the crisis which gave him his daily bread 6 I must pass over minor excitements to arrive at that of 1825. This was preceded by every symptom of prosperity; nor were these symptoms illusive. Up to the remarkable period we are about to consider, the principle of public companies had been slowly but surely progressing. All our great undertakings had been the fruits of them; and, if you will permit me, I will read to you a somewhat remarkable statement of those associations which were formed prior to 1824. To you I will not dilate on all the advantages of the joint-stock banks which superseded the private establishments. I will simply say, you owe them to a commercial panic. It was at this period, too, that railroads, then another distinctive feature of our island, were first formally introduced to the commercial world, and that the parent of all railways actually proceeded. It was then that a Great Western, a Great Northern, a London and Birmingham Railway, were proposed to be carried into effect a few years later. And I find that to the plentiful supply of money, to the large profits and enlarged hearts of our countrymen, in 1824, we owe mechanics' institutes. It is not necessary to enlarge on the immense advantage to the mechanic of societies somewhat similar to your own; it is scarcely possible to overrate it; and when, therefore, you are reminded that these links of brotherhood between the rich man and poor received during this period at once their impulse and development, I remind you of a very notable fact in the social life of England. There was scarcely a large provincial town in which they were not commenced; and in July, 1824, Lord Brougham stated that scarcely three days elapsed without his receiving accounts of some new ones; while Edward Irving declared they had arisen as if by enchantment, and spread themselves over the land. And if in 1853 they are dying almost as fast as they were born, it is because from 1825 to 1853 England has made no sufficient attempt to educate her sons-because she has not taught them to appreciate those institutions which proposed to raise them in the scale of social life; and because, in truth, these institutions met with an apathy which, I trust, will not be met with you. Among the good companies was the Australian Agricultural Company, which I know was very serviceable to many. There was the General Steam Navigation Company, now in a flourishing existence. The Provincial Bank of Ireland took its rise at this period. The St Katherine Docks, eighteen life assurance companies, with many other propositions successfully carried out, which were the fruit of 1825. But there were, besides this, many that were abandoned then to be contemplated now. There was a canal and railway to join the Atlantic to the Pacific, and this, I hope, we shall all live to see. Steam-boat com. panies were then proposed to all the places which they now occupy. There was a British Bank, an improved telegraph; and time would fail me to enumerate the many solid ideas which have since received complete development. There were many, too, which to look back upon is to mourn. I allude more especially to the foreign mines, which sent millions out of the circulation of this country, in a vain attempt to make the exhausted earth renew its stores of the precious metal. From 1825 to 1845, various other crises occurred, the benefits derived from which were undeniable; and though the railway era of the latter year was one of the most remarkable periods of the kind we have ever witnessed, I will not weary your patience by especially referring to it; we are all experiencing its benefits. Our iron roads are messengers of civilisation and commerce, of health and of happiness, to millions. They have opened a legitimate mode of investment to the growing capital of England; they have reduced the weekly expenses of the poor man; they have enlarged the field of exertion for the rich, and I more than suspect that they assist joint-stock banks in paying dividends of 6 and 7 per cent., when discounts are at 14, and money may be had for nothing. It appears also to me that it was every way an improvement on the 1825 era, its chief fault being that we wanted to do too much in too short a space of time. But I must not refer to this epoch more specially, than to affirm that the balance of good is greatly in favour of that tremendous period. There is something in the crisis of 1847 so fearful, that I hesitate to introduce it; and if I touch lightly upon that remarkable epoch, it is because I tread upon unsafe ground, and because the wound is yet unhealed. Nearly five hundred houses succumbed; but had business been in a wholesome state, this could not have been. Many of these firms were trading under false pretences-they had been insolvent for years; every article they could pledge had long been in the hands of the money brokers; one had pawned the furniture of his home, another had pledged the chattels of his counting-house, so that the very desk on which he wrote his insolvent acceptances was no longer his. And when, by an inscrutable decree of Providence-by the failure of a potato cropthis foul, false system was exploded, let me ask all here, whether the good did not outbalance the evil? whether it was not time that such a deception should be shown to the world in all its hideous hollowness, and that the greatness of a commercial name should cease to delude the public? We are now passing through a commercial excitement similar to those we have examined. We have enough and to spare for every project that is brought. The present epoch promises all manner of good things. A Crystal Palace and a railway to take us to it-steam to Australia has probably arisen from it-one of the greatest applications of science to social life, the electric light, is again brought forwardour poor are fed-our poor-houses are empty-consols above par-labour increasing in value-a colony, which may soon turn to a kingdom, receiving and providing for our surplus population, importing our commodities, and sending us gold for them. No period of our commercial history was ever gayer. We point to our metal, and defy a panic. And when the crisis of this period shall comeas I believe it surely will-I have little hesitation in affirm ing that the good will have outbalanced the evil. I do not forget that the shield has another side to it: that many homes are saddened, and many innocent men ruined, when the panic succeeds the excitement. I do not forget the uncertain position of a large portion of my own class. I have but to walk round the Exchange, to behold the spectres of those who, with haggard countenances and seedy habiliments, the fallen representatives of their former commercial greatness, haunt the spot which formerly witnessed their power, to remember the time When merchants with cargoes of trouble, And the nation a nation of croakers!' If, then, I be correct in the conclusions I have drawn, our commercial crises have, at all events, produced certain good effects. A brief digest of these will give mercantile introduction to new countries, exclusive commercial privileges, new ideas in banking, the Bank of England itself, the advance and development of the principle of life assurance, hospitals to receive the sick and suffering, canals, docks, bridges, railways, joint-stock banks, mechanics' institutions-all owing to such eras. These were some of the special advantages derived by the public from financial excitements; but there are more general and collateral benefits which spring during these periods. It is then that if a man has a new idea he will produce it, that if he has a new machine he will patent it. It is then that the inventor can find capital to perfect the invention which may add to a people's comfort, or stimulate their greatness. Nor is it one of the least of these benefits, that the excitement which precedes a commercial crisis changes the proprietorship of the good things of this world. Were it not for such great epochs, England would have been yet more a nation of millionaires than she is; we should have been yet more like old Rome when fallen on evil day, a people of extreme rich and extreme poor, instead of being, as I believe we are, a proof of the truth of Lord Bacon's wise aphorism, that money is like manure, and to do good requires to be spread. I believe that these crises are for good. They are the necessary consequences of a high productive power. We are eminently a nation of tradesmen, and that this is no reproach, let the republics of Italy in their palmiest days bear witness. But being good tradesmen, our capital is constantly increasing, and so long as this continues, we must find some mode of getting interest for it. THE GOLDEN HEART. CHAP IV. THERE was a short calm after Mrs Selby's return-a hush before the storm broke in all its wild devastating fury. Who may describe the consternation and excitement which pervaded the coteries of B, when it was reported that Mornington's bank had stopped payment? In a short time the disastrous intelligence spread with certainty, coupled with rumours of the utter and deplorable ruin which must ensue to all connected with it. Whispers also began to circulate of Mr Alfred's disappearance; and at length it was openly promulgated that he had gone off to America, with a large sum of money in his possession. Where is Old Mornington? what has become of the old swindler? was heard on all sides from those whose property had been swallowed up. At his house out of town, skulking, and hiding his misery and disgrace? Yes, yes, there Old Mornington was found, but deaf to reproach, heedless of ruin; for he was found dead in his library, and, to all appearance, he had been dead for hours. An inquest was held, and a verdict returned of 'Died by the visitation of God, occasioned by distress of mind inducing apoplexy.' But wise folks shook their heads, and mysteriously hinted the dreadful affair had been hushed up; in short, that Mr Mornington had put an end to his miserable existence. However, the jury expressed a different opinion, and they were quite as likely to be right as the sagacious persons who differed from them. The widow took refuge with her daughter Selby, and thither also repaired poor, silly, little Julia-now, for the first time in her life, made acquainted with real anguish. Stupified, stricken down, and shrinking from the light of day, John Mornington cowered beneath the blow, scarce understanding its full extent. His capacity, never very bright, and his appreciation of the banking details, never very clear, did not improve by calamity; and he was utterly incapable of affording information or assistance. The truth also became noised abroad that he had been cheated into marrying a penniless girl, whose heart he was breaking by unkindness, on discovering the imposition practised by Mrs Chatterbin. It is astonishing how evil reports accumulate and fly. From the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, they gather and cluster round the fallen wretch. Vainly Aurora essayed to comfort her unhappy husband--in the day of adversity he had no prop whereon to lean, and he scorned to rest, even for awhile, on gentle woman's soothing. He repulsed her with coldness, and, wrapt up in egotism and selfishness, moodily abstained from discussion of the past or consultation as to their future hopes. Aurora was denied admittance at Mrs Selby's; and in her own desolate home she awaited in silent suspense, from day to day, her husband's signal for removing from their luxurious abode. John had told her he was a beggar-irretrievably ruined and disgraced-and that he could not dig; to beg he was ashamed. What was to be done? Willingly John Mornington would have fled from B, but he had no funds at his disposal. People rather felt for him too; he had been kept in the dark by his father and brother, and had no ill meaning about him. He gave up all he had in the world; he could do no more, and the tide of popular sympathy set in towards the junior partner of this once highlyestimated firm. That he was unkind to his wife was nothing; with domestic matters, the business world of B had nothing to do. John had been amongst them all his life, and the rich Morningtons' were associated with the local impressions of B in their minds; therefore John was not so hardly dealt with as he might have been, and friends of the family came forward to assist him. In the course of a few months, Mrs Selby turned her back on the scene of these family misfortunes, and, taking her sister Julia as a companion, resorted to a distant watering-place, where she eventually fixed her residence. John, after removing to a humble house in a confined street, obtained a mercantile situation in B, with a very moderate salary; for the present, Mrs Mornington continued with her son; Mrs Selby thought it better-she was so 'unsettled;' and when darling Fanny and Philip returned to England, they, no doubt, would be so delighted to have mamma with them. Alas! Goneril and Regan fled, and Fanny was to prove the Cordelia. Poor weak woman! Aurora pitied her deeply; endured patiently all her fretfulness and rude, insulting behaviour, and repaid it with attention, because she had fallen from a high estate, and the sympathies of a Desmond never failed under such circumstances. In her straitened home, on straitened means, Aurora first understood the bitter lesson of actual poverty; in the old chateau it had been a romance of poverty, never realised in cold, biting, petty details. Besides, then she was a hopeful, young, and inexperienced girl, with life before her, and happiness too. Now, alas! how changed the aspect of all things! Mrs Mornington, deserted by her former acquaintances, and not able to endure the mortifications heaped upon her, shut herself up in the small chamber appropriated for her use, waited on and tended by Aurora, whom she insulted and reviled on every opportunity; her time was passed in selfish lamentations, and in peevish complaints of bodily ailments-the consequence of increasing years and anxiety of mind. John Mornington, not improved by adversity, began to contract habits of excess, ending in frequent inebriety, which shocked and afflicted his poor wife more than aught that had gone before. She-Nelly Blane's princess of the ancient and chivalrous Desmonds-stood alone in her desolation, amid the ruins and wreck of her young life's peace. But there was even then one drop of sweetness left in this brimming cup of bitters. She had saved him, so fondly loved, from a threatened fearful doom; Philip Eardley was safe, though she was sacrificed. There was a secret clinging belief in poor Aurora's inmost heart of clay, that Philip still cherished her memory--still remembered with tenderness the early love-dream, so transient and so beautiful; and that, when he learnt the truth (and he would learn it when she was no more), he would do her justice, and give a sigh for the hard and mysterious fate which had divided them. She judged of Philip by herself, and forgot how widely sundered, and how different were their paths through the wilderness: one beset with thorns and briars; the other strewed with flowers beneath summer skies. Far was it from Aurora's pure mind to entertain a wish that Philip Eardley should cherish aught towards her inimical to his peace, or aught that was unha!lowed in God's sight. It was but a natural lingering weakness, scarce deserving the name of vanity, which made her sometimes think how he would feel and look if they ever met again. The experience was vouchsafed ere the contents of the golden heart were revealed. In process of time, Mr and Mrs Eardley returned to their own land; Philip purchased an estate in the vicinity of the watering-place where Mrs Selby had fixed her abode, and where Julia still remained her companion in single blessedness. As to Alfred, he had disappeared in the gold regions, and Julia prognosticated that he would one day return triumphantly, and pay principal and interest, besides leaving enough to build a palace of the precious ore, studded with diamonds. Fanny had presented her husband with several fine children, and Aurora clasped to her bosom one little sickly, miserable infant, whom the father never noticed, and Mrs Mornington detested, because it cried, and disturbed her rest; for the partitions of the ill-built house they inhabited were not thick enough to shut out such domestic music.' Gladly her mother accepted Fanny's procrastinated invitation, to pay Philip and her a long visit;' the children had been ailing, the mansion had been under repair, and various other items were enumerated, to account for the apparent neglect. Mrs Mornington's departure was a sensible relief to Aurora-it enabled her to devote more time to the poor baby, and she needed rest for herself. Rest! who would have recognised in the wasted shadow, cowering beneath her husband's violence, the gay, beautiful creature, idling away her time in the sunny gardens of the old chateau, flitting round Dr Progin like a butterfly, and coaxing him to read the stars ?—a moth fluttering round the flame to its own certain destruction. John Mornington's habits became more and more confirmed; he seldom returned home sober, usually late at night, from some disreputable orgies in the neighbourhood after business hours were over. Once, when Aurora gently remonstrated, the man struck her: from that hour she was mute, and death was written on her face. John rarely heard from his sisters; and when they did write, Aurora was not named. Fanny's epistles were filled with descriptions (which John never read) of her wonderful children; and Mrs Selby's contained good advice, and at Christmas a five-pound note for 'dear John,' which dear John took care to pocket for his own especial behoof, At length a Christmas tide approached, and the snow lay deep on the ground, and Aurora and her little son were almost as white as the snow- -(the poor mother often yearned that together they might be swathed in the same shroud, 'twas so cold a world to leave him in)-when a letter, couched in brotherly terms, from Philip Eardley, addressed to John, and containing many kind messages from Fanny, was placed in Aurora's hands by her wellpleased husband, whose anticipations resembled those of a schoolboy-immunity from work, and lots of eating and drinking. The letter contained an urgent invitation to pass the Christmas week at Eardley Grange, including |