had not terminated there, had colonel De Clifford's life been spared; but the toil of many severe campaigns, before his strength had been sufficiently matured to sustain him through them, with manifold domestic sorrows, undermined his constitution, and consigned him to an early tomb. He eloped to Scotland with the woman of his first and fondest affections, the beautiful lady Adelaide Montrose, younger daughter to the present duke of Avondale. A tooimplacable fate deprived him almost immediately of his tenderly-beloved wife. Health, long menaced, now fell a sacrifice; his physicians recommended change of scene, and a more salubrious climate.

"At Florence he met with the widow and beautiful daughter of a general St. Clair, who had been in our service, though descended from one of the persecuted noblesse, who took refuge in this kingdom at the time of the memorable revocation of the edict of Nantes. Mrs. St. Clair resided abroad, both from partiality to foreign countries, and being unable to live in England upon a very moderate income. Colonel De Clifford had long been acquainted with Miss St. Clair, who had as long been secretly

attached to him: she now sympathized in his affliction, soothed his griefs; and, fascinated once more, colonel De Clifford knelt at the altar of Hymen. His friends now hoped that happiness and long life would be his; but death had aimed his shafts too truly, and colonel De Clifford only survived his second marriage five years, and his lovely and heart-rent widow did not long linger after him; she outlived him only a very few months, leaving a daughter of four years old to the protection of Heaven and the deeply-afflicted Mrs. St. Clair.

"Mrs. St. Clair was, as well as her late husband, one of the French réfugié families whom this country sheltered, and was a descendant of the Montmorencis. Partial to Italy, she still continued to reside there, even after the premature death of her adored daughter, until the success of the French arms in that country rendered it expedient for her to quit it. But still attached to the Continent, she took up her abode for a few months in Holland, where a train was laid for the most unmerited misfortunes and cruel persecution. To England now she was obliged, with her granddaughter, to fly for refuge. She took a

small cottage in Sussex, where her implacable foe traced her out; by a succession of villanous scheming iniquity, deprived her of every earthly comfort; and forced her at length, about seven months since, without any attendant but her dutiful grandchild, to become a lodger in my house.

"Mrs. St. Clair's health had yielded more to the heavy pressure of many calamities than to old age; and when she became an inmate in my house, her complaints had assumed a fatal appearance. Ill health and affliction had, perhaps, increased the infirmities of a naturally-bad temper; for now the asperity, and never-to-be-soothed peevishness of Mrs. St. Clair, must have been found insupportable by every one, but the heaven-inspired, dutiful, uncomplaining meekness that was doomed to encounter it. The tender solicitude, unremitting care, and (surely, madam, I shall not be deemed profane if I add celestially-mild forbearance; no, such meekness could only spring from a celestial source) filial piety, with which Miss De Clifford undeviatingly attended this most petulant, impatient invalid, gave birth to that esteem and admiration which have since risen to affection, almost parental, in

Mrs. Goodwin and myself, for this most excellent, exemplary child, who had resided about five months in my house, when Mrs. St. Clair was arrested by order of her cruel oppressor, and expired in the arms of the bailiffs, as they were tearing her from her easy-chair, where the hand of duty had smoothed the pillows that supported her; nor could the pathetic supplications of the kneeling, weeping, lovely grandchild, soften their savage nature-they spurned with contumely the sweet pleader from them; and in the execution of the civil law, tore the lifeless body from the arms of filial piety.

"Hitherto Miss De Clifford had met misfortune with a degree of firmness that would not have disgraced maturer years; but here her fortitude forsook her. Her grandmother had long been the only relative known to her: she now felt as if left alone in a pitiless world; and her spirit seemed broken with the thread of Mrs. St. Clair's life. She fell upon the bosom of my wife in an agony of woe; her lamentations sprung from an innocent and feeling heart, and they wrung my very soul; in truth, madam, it was a sad, sad scene! My chil

dren, ten in number, had gathered round her; Miss De Clifford they adore-her griefs were theirs; and even the youngest, a babe of three years old, dropped his artless tears of sympathy.

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And now, madam, the hand of Almighty Providence intervened. My eldest girl, overcome by excess of feeling, was taken by my eldest boy from the heart-rending scene. A gentleman-a stranger, madam, directed by the hand of Heaven and matchless benevolence, appeared; gave my boy five hundred pounds to liberate the corpse of Mrs. St. Clair, and the remainder for her grandchild's use-said Miss De Clifford had one steady and powerful friend— but, alas! she cannot guess even at the name of that friend, and never have we been able to trace this stranger out; but wherever he is, the blessing of the orphan whom he has befriended attends him still, and may he never experience less genuine satisfaction than he felt at the moment his hand was held out to relieve her!

"Miss De Clifford's grief for the melancholy fate of her grandmother soon subdued her every faculty; she fell dangerously ill. In the first moments of her anguish, she