behind him, before his senses had altogether recovered from the shock they received. His eyes wandered almost unconsciously over the prospect now spread before him. It was one of those wide and extended vales, where a lazy stream glided along like a silvery serpent amongst the gay greens and yellows of the richest cultivation; where groves, and bean-fields, and gardens, and fra grant meadows, and hop-grounds, mingled their varied beauties; and where the curling smoke of many a vine-clad cottage, and snug farm-house, seemed to speak the existence of a thick-sown and happy population. Alas, how often does such a flattering picture, when more narrowly examined, prove but the deceitful gilding of misery!

A warm, misty-looking vapour, like a summer exhalation, arose from the middle of the scene, and melted into the blue sky; and immediately under it, a pointed spire or two, and a tall Gothic tower, together with some red-tiled roofs, and brick gables, peeping here and there in clusters from the trees they were interspersed with, showed that it proceeded from a little country town. A considerable extent of turf near it, having a

smooth swarded sweeping line traced over its surface, partly enclosed with a barrier of painted posts and rails, marked the race-ground. Amherst's fell eyes upon it. He retraced his steps to the gate, and, calling out the park-keeper's wife, he described the appearance of the female whom he had so lately seen, soon ascertained where she lived, and, impatient to follow the impulse of his heart, entered a narrow lane, leading, between hedges, towards the village.

The path he followed soon opened upon the race-ground; but it was some little time before he could discover the habitation he was in search of. At last he found it, under a great oak tree. It seemed to be one of those temporary édifices of turf, usually erected on the margin of the com

those low hucksters who frequent races and fairs, and generally left untenanted, except during the few days when the sports are going forward. The entrance was closed by a door of wattle. He stooped to go in; but as the opening, originally serving as a window, had been recently blocked up with sods, the inside was so dark, that objects were not at first discernible. As he stood for a moment in the aperture, a boy

of between three and four years old, with no other covering than a ragged shirt, and worn to a skeleton by famine, came creeping, like an apparition, into the stream of light that broke into the hut, crying, with a faint voice, "Mammy! mammy!"

Amherst spoke kindly to the poor child, and asked him where his mammy was; but, "Don't know-Mammy! Oh, my mammy! Where's my mammy ?" was all the answer he could give.

As his eyes became accustomed to the twilight of the place, he was enabled to see better around him; and nothing could equal the miserable interior. A broken table, propped by two large stones, two wooden stools, an old hamper, a couple of cracked vessels of brown earthenware, one of which seemed to contain water, and a great heap of straw and rushes in the obscurity at one end of the hovel, composed its whole furniture.

Whilst Amherst was surveying these objects, and looking in vain for the inhabitants of this wretched abode, his attention was attracted by the attitude of the little boy, who was hanging over the hamper, and gazing earnestly into it. He put in his little hands, to touch something,

and then clasping them together, he burst into tears, exclaiming, "Oh! Sally's cold, cold! Oh, mammy, mammy! Oh, come back, mammy!"

Amherst approached the hamper, when he perceived that it contained an infant of three or four months old. The head appeared from amidst a heap of rags and straw; and an old torn jacket, that seemed to have belonged to the little boy, was laid over the body of the child. The boy looked anxiously in Amherst's face, as he lifted up the little coat.

"Don't ye take it off," said he; "I put it on to make poor Sally warm."

But, alas! no heat could now be imparted to the little innocent. Death's icy hand had already extinguished her feeble spark of life. What was Amherst's horror when he discovered this? And how was it augmented, when, by moving the hamper a little towards the light, he surveyed the havock made on features naturally very lovely? Disease, terminating in extreme exhaustion from lack of the warm life-draught the parched bosom of the mother could no longer supply, had finally brought on spasms; and her eyes and mouth, open and contorted, were horri

bly fixed by the last terrible convulsion, that had liberated her guiltless spirit from its earthly pri

son.

A faint, but lengthened groan, issuing from the heap of mingled straw and rushes in the obscurity at the farther end of the hovel, now informed him that something yet unseen remained of life within its walls. He hastened to ascertain from whom it proceeded. A ghastly eye, that seemed to have the settled glaze of death upon it, stared upon him from amongst the heaped up litter. He lifted a portion of it, and there, beneath a canvas sheet, he beheld the extenuated and livid body of a man, apparently of middle age, lying on an old horse-rug.

Gaunt famine seemed to have nearly completed its work upon him. The vital spark was still lingering there, however; though all consciousness of existence seemed to be gone. Amherst's very soul was harrowed up with the sad spectacle he beheld, and he was so agitated and perplexed, that he knew not well what to do. He could not leave the miserable object before him to die without help; and yet, if he staid, what help could he afford, without the means? Life ebbed fast