'sternly, while he threw himself down at full length upon the sofa, and I heard without any emotion his half choked exclamation, "Lord, Lord, what is to become of me!"

On reaching the back drawing room, I encountered Miss Gubbley walking to and fro, excessively pale and agitated. I had uncoiled that little viper-I had plucked it from the heart into which it had crept, and so far I felt that I had not failed in that night's errand! I foresaw her speedy dismissal; and it took place within a week from the day on which I had visited Mr. IIillary.

The next day, about noon, I called at the lodging where Elliott's remains were lying, in order that I might make a few simple arrangements for a speedy funeral.

"Oh, here's Dr. the house, to a gentleman dressed in black, who, with two others in similar habiliments, was just quitting. "These 'ere gentlemen, sir, are come about the funeral, sir, of poor dear Mr. Elliott." I begged them to return into the house. "I presume, sir," said I, "you have been sent here by Mr. Hillary's orders ?"

!" exclaimed the woman of

"A-Mr. Hillary did me the honour, sir, to request me to call, sir," replied the polite man of death, with a low bow," and am favoured with the expression of his wishes, sir, to spare no expense in showing his respect for the deceased. So my men have just measured the body, sir; the shell will be here to-night, sir, the leaden coffin the day after, and the outer coffin

"Stop, sir; Mr. Hillary is premature. quite mistaken my wishes, sir.

He has

I act as the executor

of Mr. Elliott, and Mr. Hillary has no concern whatever with the burial of these remains."

He bowed, with an air of mingled astonishment and mortification,

"It is my wish and intention, sir,” said I, “that this

unfortunate gentleman be buried in the simplest and most private manner possible."

"Oh, sir! but Mr. Hillary's orders to me were--pardon me, sir--so very liberal, to do the thing in a gentlemanlike way—"

"I tell you again, sir, that Mr. Hillary has nothing whatever to do with the matter, nor shall I admit of his interference. If you choose to obey my orders, you will procure a plain deal coffin, a hearse and pair, and one mourning coach, and provide a grave in

churchyard-nay, open Mr. Hillary's vault and bury there, if he will permit."

"I really think, sir, you'd better employ a person in the small way," said he, casting a grim look at his two attendants; "I am not accustomed-"

"You may retire then, sir, at once," said I; and with . a lofty bow the great undertaker withdrew. No!despised, persecuted, and forsaken had poor Elliott been in his life; there should be, I resolved, no splendid mockery-no fashionable foolery about his burial! I chose for him, not the vault of Mr. Hillary, but a grave in the humble churchyard of where the poor suicide might slumber in "penitential loneliness!" He was buried as I wished-no one attending the funeral but myself, the proprietor of the house in which he had lived at the period of his death, and the early and humble acquaintance who had attended his wedding. I had wished to carry with us as chief mourner, little Elliott, by way of fulfilling, as far as possible, the touching injunctions left by his father, but my wife dis suaded me from it. "Well, poor Elliott," said I, as I took my last look into his grave→→

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.'

Heaven forgive the rash act which brought his days to an untimely close, and him whose cruelty and wickedness occasioned it !"

I shall not bring the reader again into the guilty and

gloomy presence of Mr. Hillary. His hard heart was indeed broken by the blow that poor Elliott had struck, whose mournful prophesy was in this respect fulfilled. Providence decreed that the declining days of the inexorable and unnatural parent should be clouded with a wretchedness that admitted of neither intermission nor alleviation, equally destitute as he was of consolation from the past, and hope from the future!

And his daughter!-oh, disturb not the veil that has fallen over the broken hearted!

Never again did the high and noble spirit of Mary Elliott lift itself up--for her heart lay buried in her young husband's grave--the grave dug for him by the eager and cruel hands of her father! In vain did those hands lavishly scatter about her all the splendour and luxuries of unbounded wealth-they could never divert her cold undazzled eye from the mournful image of him whose death had purchased them; and what could she see in her too late repentant father, but his murderer ?

END OF THE MERCHANT'S CLERK.

THE singular-the apparently improbable circumstances which form the basis of the ensuing narrative, occurred about fifty years ago. I am not aware of their having been till now brought before the public eye in any other shape than a brief and naked contemporaneous report. I am a curious man, and somewhat successful in hunting after such matters; but the following are the fruits of a discovery made a few years ago by mere accident. One or two cases are on record, in the criminal annals of this and other countries, in which similar motives induced nearly similar conduct—but infinitely less systematic, mysterious, and atrocious, than what I am at present about to develop.

Shrewsbury clock was tolling twelve, on a fine frosty moonlight night, ushering in the Christmas of 1760, as a wagoner, with a snow-white smock-frock on, and a half-emptied jug of ale in his hand, sallied out of the Hunting Horn inn-one of the chiefest in