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Mary is too good to be my wife-too good to live. And there's my comfort, sir."

Rivers made no reply, and his companion went on

“I am not a religious man, Harry, you know that well enough; and I never shall be: I don't take to it kindly, I know-the more's the pity, perhaps. But I know enough about it to make me feel that it will be better for poor Mary to die, than to live to be my wife, or any other man's wife. I can't say more now, Master

Harry."

By this time the young men so widely different in external appearance and apparent outward circumstances and breeding, yet so closely united by the sympathies of a common nature, and by old associations and mutual benefits, as instinctively to break through, in a great measure, the barriers reared between them by rank, and education, and position-had ascended the hill, and stood still to look round and cast a parting glance, as it seemed, on the scene below. And as this is as good an opportunity as will occur, we may also take breath, and then commence another chapter.

CHAPTER V.

"THE HURLOCKS.

DAYLIGHT was fast fading away; but the moon, then nearly at full, had already risen, and was shedding its subdued light on the wooded valley, in the depth of whose recesses the peaceful waters lay in calm quiet, reflecting like polished glass the moonbeams that played upon them; for the mists had risen, and were gently rolling up the opposite hills in thin, fleecy clouds. "It is very beautiful," said Henry Rivers, with a sigh.

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The sigh may be pardoned. Three years earlier than the commencement of our story, Henry Rivers might have looked over the whole valley. now spread beneath his feet, and whispered to himself, "All this will some day be mine;" and it had never occurred to him to take to heart the warning, "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Was he not heir to "The Hurlocks," with its broad park-like Chase, as well as of the woods and waters and mills we have described? And how should he think otherwise than that the morrow would be as the present day, and much more abundant? Historians have written of the rise and fall of empires; and volumes, equally instructive, might be penned respecting the rise and fall of families. It is, however, only necessary to state, that when Henry Rivers was about twenty-two years old, he not only was suddenly bereaved of his father (his mother having died in his childhood), but made the astounding discovery that he was a ruined man even at the outset of his career; and after battling desperately, if not wisely, with his depressed fortunes, and resisting, by a short struggle in the higher courts, the course of law, which eventually transferred almost all his possessions to the hands of another, he found himself the owner of one solitary and half-ruinous farm-house, and a few score acres of barren land near the sea-coast, a few hundred pounds in funded securities, an ancient but not a particularly distinguished or distinguishable name, and no profession. The short explanation of this wretched downcome may be given in a single sentence: his father had secretly gambled away all his own possessions and his son's hopes, and then died broken-hearted.

We return to our story.

"It is very beautiful," said the young man, as he cast a long, lingering glance at the moonlit valley.

"I wouldn't look at it, Master Harry," said his humble companion.

"Perhaps you are right, Tom. Looking will not bring it back to me, will it ?" and he turned away.

“And if I might be so bold," continued Carey, as the two walked onward, "I should say it is not worth while to go along by 'The Hurlocks.' It is a longer way round by the Toll, to be sure; but then you won't see what you maybe won't like to see." "And you think I shall cry over spilt milk, eh, Tom?"

"I don't say that, Master Harry; but what the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve at,” replied the counsellor.

"For all that I must look at the old place once more, Tom, and you shall see that I am not so weak as you would make me out; and now, to change the subject, I wish to say a word or two to you on something that concerns you personally. May I, Tom?" "Anything you like, Master Harry; only if it is the old

story

"It is the old story. I wish you would give up your connection with—well, let me say, with the old trade." "Smuggling, of course, sir?"

"Yes, smuggling, since you have spoken it."

"You know our old agreement, Master Henry," said Carey, in a low tone.

"Yes, I have not forgotten that, Tom. It was to be the one thing in which I was not to interfere with you."

"And to know nothing about it," said Tom, quickly.

"True; but now we are going to part you won't mind my giving a word of advice-for the last time."

"We shan't quarrel, Master Harry," said Tom, heartily, shifting the portmanteau he was carrying to the other shoulder: "say your say, Harry, and have done with it."

"My say is soon said, Tom. I want you to break off your dealings with that disreputable gang and that dangerous trade. Now I have said it."

"Thank you, Master Harry," said Tom, in his former hearty

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tone, and with a light laugh; "short and sweet. But how do you know that I have any such dealings?"

"Tom!"

"And if I have, where's the harm of it, Master Harry ?"

"It is against the laws," replied Rivers.

"If lawyers will make bad laws, they must look for their being broke," said Tom, firmly.

"We won't argue about the laws being either good or bad, Tom. But I don't think that breaking even a bad law is desirable. Mind, I do not say that the revenue laws are bad. The expenses of government must be met somehow; you know that."

"I told you I was not a philosopher, Master Harry, and I am not over fond of arguing; so we may as well drop it. I thank you for your advice, though.'

"And you will take it, Tom?"

"I don't say that, sir; and, to be on the square, I may as well say that if I was to give up my connection, as you say, with the trade, as you call it, I might as well leave these parts altogether.” "I don't see that, Tom," said Rivers.

""Tis true for all that, Master Harry; and, as this is the last time, maybe, I'll speak out. The truth is, I was at first drawn into it in a manner without knowing or caring anything about it; then I carried it on for the fun of it; and now I know too much to make it safe for me to draw back. That's the honest truth, Harry. At times of late, I have wished that I could; for I am partly of your mind that there's no good to be got by it; and as for the fun of the thing "-Tom's words fell mournfully from his lips-"'tis little I care for that now.”

There was another pause after this, for both Rivers and Carey had their own peculiar and separate musings. Tom's thoughts turned instinctively to Mary Austin, and her oft-repeated loving entreaties that he would abandon his evil companionships. He would have been at Mary's home, and in her society now, if he

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had not so unexpectedly fallen in with Henry Rivers; and it may show how strong was the tie which bound these two young men together, when we see that the lover had unhesitatingly deferred his visit to his heart's mistress for the sake of his friend.

In truth there existed, as we have already intimated, exceedingly strong affection between Harry Rivers and Tom Carey, which had long since brought about the friendly familiarity which our readers will have noted in the intercourse of that evening's walk. Having, years before, saved the son of the owner of Hurlock Chase from drowning, Tom Carey had been allowed the run of the great house, had been kindly and gratefully noticed by the squireas Mr. Rivers was then called-had received some kind of an education, had been the frequent companion of the youth he had thus rescued, until days of idleness perforce gave way to days of industry, and even then the friendship was continued. Mr. Rivers had, from time to time, promised, and also intended, to do great things for the preserver of his son; but, partly from a habit of procrastination, and partly from the secret burden on his conscience, which bore him down, these promises were never fulfilled, and death finally huddled them away into the limbo of good intentions. From Harry Rivers himself, since his father's death, Tom Carey had received some offers of substantial benefit, but Tom had stoutly refused to receive anything at his hands. 66 If you were as rich as everybody thought you would be, Master Harry, I wouldn't have minded being raised in life a bit, for Mary's sake as well as my own," Tom had said, eight months before; "but it doesn't matter; I have got these hands, and I tell you no, Harry. Let me know that you are not too proud to think of me sometimes as your friend, and I don't want anything else, and won't have it."

There the matter had then ended; and now, eight months later, Henry Rivers was thinking of this magnanimity on Tom's part, and was wondering whether at some future time he should

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