but not with any appearance of the interest and admiration it was qualified to inspire; he was impatient to see the hues of glory fade away. The chief object of his attention was a child of nine years old, seated in the recess of the window, and wholly absorbed in the spectacle before her.

While the first glance at the dying man pronounced him to be an Englishman, with much of English beauty even now discernible on his high brow, aquiline nose, and in his sunken blue eye, the child on whom he gazed too fondly for her to be other than his own, had every characteristic of an Italian. Her features were strikingly symmetrical, her clear skin was tinged with the richest dye; her dark hair, glistening in the sunshine like threads of gold, was bound round her slight head in profuse braids. With parted lips, and attitude and look of deep devotion, she sat watching the beauties of the sky rapidly varying before her sight. A painter might well have seized the rapturous expression of her countenance to denote the childish meditations of one destined in after life to be singularly visited of God. Her father regarded her in silence with a reverent love; tears gathered in his eyes; he covered them with his thin, clasped fingers; a stifled sob filled his throat; the sound caught the quick ear of his little nurse, and darting down from her seat, she was at his side.

'Dearest father!' she said, kneeling by him.

"You were rejoicing in the beauty of the evening, my child. The glorious spectacle is almost over now. Spare me the few moments for which you would have lingered still—'

'Oh, father, were you in want of anything, yet failed to call me ?' asked the girl, reproachfully.

'I do wish to have a few minutes' conversation with you, before your grandfather returns, Beatrice. I have often deferred it, but I would not let this opportunity pass.' There was a feverish disquietude in his manner. You love your grandfather, my child?' he continued, drawing her towards him, and pressing her convulsively to his bosom.

"Yes,' replied the girl, as Cordelia might have uttered the word.

'You must cherish him when I am gone.'

Beatrice was accustomed to hear her father speak of departure, and yet to bridle all emotion. 'Bring me your Bible-quick!'

She had not far to seek.

Can you find the parable of the Prodigal Son?' he said, turning over the leaves with trembling fingers. The girl opened them at once at the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke.

'Read it to me.'

Beatrice obeyed. Her father, while she read, threw himself back on his pillow; tears ran down his cheek in silence, then groans escaped his labouring breast. The child on her knees, her clasped hands on her book, gazed on him earnestly, but without comprehending the meaning of the scene. He raised himself, placed his finger on the page, and with tremulous energy, he said—

Beatrice, remember in future never to read that parable without reflecting that such a prodigal was the wretched man who calls you his child; ay, and worse, for he left his father in plenty, and with a

more dutiful son to minister to him; but I have cost mine his hearth and his home,-exiled him from his native land. Remember, also, that such a parent was mine. He has come into a distant country to seek his son; he has fallen on my neck, and supplies my necessities with his small remaining substance. And I-what can I do to make amends for the past, Beatrice ? What have I, save one little ewe lamb, that lies in my bosom, to give him? Yes, my child, I entreat you, with this my latest breath, promise me to show towards him that dutifulness and that love which I can never express again but in words. Be to him in all things as nearly what I ought to have been, as the helplessness of your age and your sex will permit. Neither the one nor the other lessens your power to comfort and to gladden. When most we need consolation and hope, it is the woman and the child who can best bring them home to us. Of the trials and temptations of life you as yet know nothing; sorrows you believe there are, because you see the faces you love sorrowful.'

'Oh! father, sorrow I feel, because I see you suffer, and because I grieve with him when you say that the time draws near when you will be with us no more!'

The child sobbed; she had refrained from tears with that strange quietness which in the sick chamber she was accustomed to practise, but nature now would have its way. A bright and beautiful beam of hope broke over her father's countenance; he bent over her, and whispered in her ear:

'Weep not for me, for my earthly parent tells me that his love is but the feeble image of the love of

One on High; that my Heavenly Father will forgive, will welcome me even as he has forgiven and welcomed

The girl raised her head, saying, suddenly:

'The last night that we were at Lawley, when I was sad at the thought of going I knew not whither, my grandfather called me to him, and took me on his knee; his Bible lay open before him, his cheek was wet with tears when he kissed me. He said: 'My Beatrice must be glad, not sorrowful, for her father was lost and is found, and we go hence to meet him.' But I did not know' She paused.

‘The meaning I have this hour unfolded to you. He would conceal it in his fond and perfect forgiveness, but I declare it in order that you may promise me to make him all the amends in your power for the evil I have done.'

'I do promise,' replied Beatrice, solemnly, and she said no more. She looked at her father's flushed cheek and glittering eye, and did not dare to ask him, as her whole heart yearned to do, to speak to her of her mother. Must she never hear of her from his lips? The child smothered her passionate feelings, and sat motionless as a statue, till a feeble step was heard on the stairs.

That he should have to mount here!' groaned her father. Beatrice sprang forward to throw open the outer door, and led in the old man (old and broken-down rather by present care than by years, for he was not more than fifty-five), refreshing his languor by her smile of welcome. He kissed her, approached his son, took his hand, and sighed deeply as he felt the burning heat of his skin.

'I am better, father-better than I have been for

many evenings,' cried his son, with that feeling of elation which an accomplished purpose excites.

" Are you, my boy?' and his eye glanced at the Bible. Has Beatrice been reading to you?' 'Yes-words of peace and joy.'

That is well,' said his father; 'but, Gerald, you need repose.'

From that hour Gerald could less than ever bear that his father should be absent from his sight. It seemed as if the prodigal's hope of heaven grew dim when he did not see it reflected on the serene countenance of the parent who had come to seek him, and to lead him into paths of penitence and peace.

Five years before the period of which we have been speaking, on a clear frosty night in the Christmas season, when the moon, shining brightly down on the little village of Lawley and on the Grove, (an humble yet the most important residence it contained,) pierced through the leafless trees, chequered the ground with the shadow of every branch and stem, and slept more quietly on the turf bank and smooth lawn which lay round the house, in the shadow of the porch stood Gerald Courtenay, on the threshold of his father's home, uncrossed by him for many a day. A large cloak enveloped the young man's form; he shook himself free from it for a moment before putting his hand on the lock of the door, in order that he might look on the burden which lay concealed from view, and protected from cold beneath it. The face of a sleeping child met his gaze.

'How pure, how serene are yon silver moon, and thy blessed face, my darling!' he exclaimed. They