All immediately sprang up and flew to his assistance.

They found his face covered with what appeared to them a quantity of mud, especially his eyes were completely filled with it. Those parts of the features not reached were of a burning scarlet hue, and his black neckerchief and the collar of his coat were sprinkled with vivid red stains.

They could not divine what this was till one, attempting to wipe it away, had his fingers burnt. It was a large quantity of the strongest oil of vitriol, mixed with sand. A cry of horror arose in that hall, so recently ringing with shouts of conviviality, and at once all was confusion, uproar, indecision, wonder, fear.

Some cried out to fix and barricade the doors; others, to send to the barracks, and call out a guard of soldiers. Some crowded round the prostrate gentleman; others ran hither and thither about the great apartment, unknowing what to do or where to fly.

At length a gentleman present, who had been exerting himself to produce something like order, succeeded in pressing, as it were, two terrified waiters to bring cold water, wherewith to dilute and wash away the acid. He was a surgeon, and the leading person of that profession in the place.

He had him then removed upstairs to one of the bedrooms of the hotel, and renewed his sanative endeavours. But it was plainly of no avail the hellish scheme had been too well concocted, and too adroitly executed. The sand had found its way into the eyes, and deep into the nostrils. Part of the face was already a black, burnt, lifeless mass, and it was plain that sloughing or mortification must spread to a fearful extent. The eyes!-they were already burnt out-there was no hope for them. Was there hope for life?-the surgeon shook his head.

Shortly the unfortunate sufferer recovered consciousness-the agony he now endured must have been dreadful; and though he appeared a man who had great control over his feelings, yet his groans were so harrowing, that several people living at the hotel immediately left it for other establishments.

For twenty-four hours this continued; then the pain ceased-for why?-the nerves were dead. The flesh of his face was now a burnt, lifeless mass, and was fast beginning to separate from the bone. Horrible!

But now he commenced to talk in a strange way. His attendants took it for delirium, but the surgeon, as he listened, heard names and circumstances mentioned, with which he recollected himself being involved in early youth, which had been graven, as it were, with an iron pen in his memory. His attention was aroused, and soon he became convinced that his patient was the same by whom, half a lifetime before, he had been so mysteriously employed in London. He spoke to him, and endeavoured to recall himself to his recollection. From that instant the delirium ceased-the poor sufferer spoke no longer of old things-no further did he rave of remorse or vengeance-no more did he murmur the gentle name of Leah Meriel.

"Has the man been taken, doctor ?" at length he asked.

"No, it would seem the conspiracy has been so darkly wrought up,

that there is no lighting upon the actual perpetrator. They only wait for a description of his person from you to trace him out, and have him brought to punishment."

"I can give no description !"

"A very large reward has been offered for his apprehension, but hitherto without success; and as most of the men out of employ are emigrating, it is possible he may find his way out of the country before suspicion fairly alights upon him."

"God grant it!"

In a clean, though scantily-furnished apartment of a one-story house, on the outside of the town, sat an elderly woman alone, A table was beside her, with a large old Bible upon it, and a pair of spectacles laid in the fold of the leaves. A lamp hung by a wire from a hook in the ceiling above it, and a small fire was glowing in the chimney. It was past midnight.

She sat in a musing posture, her head leaning on her hand, and her eyes fixed upon the fire. The fender, part of the ring of an old carriage-wheel, supported a couple of small feet, which, from their elegance of shape, along with the little hand, now marked with prominent blue veins, that rested on her knees, could have belonged only to Fairy Leah. It was she.

As she sat, she uttered, apparently without being conscious of it, her thoughts aloud.

"Alas! will he never reform ?-will he never become what he was? Not a night that he comes home to me but he is mad with liquor! No change-no amendment-no hope! Woe is my heart-my child is become worse to me than ever my mother was! How shall I soothe him, and get him peaceably to bed?"

Here she heard the door opened-a foot hurried stealthily along the passage, and she rose to her feet to be on her guard as her son entered the room.

He was a tall, besotted-looking young man, with a heavy fur-cap drawn down over his eyes. He stood for a moment, and then slipped down on a chest close to the wall, his features wearing a look of extreme excitement, which, to her eyes, was palpably more than that of drunkenness. She stood looking at him, uncertain what to think or do, overpowered with anxiety and apprehension.

"Mother!" said he, in a low, hoarse voice, while he trembled exceedingly, "I have killed a man!”

The agitation of the poor woman was extreme. She attempted to speak, but could not, while she clutched the back of the chair she had risen from, to prevent her from falling to the ground.

"They made me do it," he continued. "The card turned up 'John Meriel,' and we had all sworn. Oh, my God! how different it looks now when it is done, from what it did before! Mother, I am in mortal fear!" and he gave way to a flood of weeping, while she stood gazing at him, struck to the very heart.

"What is it you have done, John?" at length she uttered.

"That man who set up the machines at the mills, that have made us beggars :-the man from some place in shire, -Basil is his

name."

"Mercy!" she screamed, putting one hand suddenly to her head. "I have done for him!"

She fell to the floor as if she had been shot.

He sat still for a few minutes, looking at her with a stupid stare. Then, rising, he lifted her up and laid her on the bed in a corner of the place, and resumed his seat on the chest.

The second day after the commission of this crime, a quiet, poor, genteel-looking woman presented herself at the hotel where Basil lay. She inquired if he were yet living. The porter replied that he was still alive and sensible.

"Tell him that a woman is here who very much desires to see him. Her name is Leah Meriel, of

shire.”

The man went directly, not to him, but to the surgeon. On hearing the name mentioned, a strange chain of recollections and surmises arose in his mind, which, combined with what he had gathered from the murmurings of his patient, produced a mass of most unpleasant suspicions, fears, and doubts. He immediately gave instructions to admit her. And yet he repented of this shortly.

"Such an interview is certain, if all be as I think, to hurry his dissolution. But again, there is no hope, and how am I to know whether this matter is not something it may ease his dying moments to have settled?"

He accordingly introduced her, having first mentioned to him the fact of her presence.

She found him laid on his bed, the whole of his face covered with dressings and bandages, his mouth only being free to allow of his breathing.

"Is it you, Leah?" said he, much moved.

"It is John," she replied, and sank upon a chair by the bedside, taking hold of his hand with both of hers.

The surgeon withdrew,-the hired nurse at the time happened to be absent.

“Leah,” said he, "I thought you had been long ago laid in your grave. Have you not forgot me-now? I am sure there was little of good in me to be loved so much."

Forgot you, John! Heaven knows I never loved any human being save you and my miserable son !"

"And after thirty years separation, now when you find me an aged, mangled, dying wretch, do you talk to me in this way?"

"Yes, John, if an eternity were to pass away, could I do aught but still love you-and your child, though he has been to me as any thing but yours. Alas! from first to last, what a life I have led ?" "Comfort yourself, Leah. You have lived sinlessly, and endured your trials with meekness. There is rest for you in futurity-though not for one so fearfully stained as I am."

He paused-he was very weak.

"Is it not an awful thing, Leah, to be dying with such thoughts as these?"

She gave way to a gush of weeping.

"What a fearful account I have to render!" he continued. "Did I not, when I had the rearing of your young mind, teach you evil and not good?"

"Alas! John, you taught me to love you-the rest was all my

own."

"And that crime the most heinous erring man can commit! Did I not slaughter him-send him to judgment unwarned-and he the father that begot me? Has not the great Father dreadfully punished the deed. Did not his finger write on my boy's brow the command ‹ Avenge'—and see how he has fulfilled it. Yes, Leah, ere his hand did this to me, I could see, in the moonlight, [the curse graven on his forehead!"

There was a long pause.

At length he said, in a calmer tone

"Leah, there is something yet to be done."

At that moment the surgeon entered the room.

He was about to

take leave for the time, and stated he would look in again, in the evening.

"Doctor," said the patient," is Mr.

I still in the house? I have changed my mind, and have something to bequeath."

"I will send for him immediately;" and after looking to the dressings, he withdrew.

The lawyer arrived shortly after, and with his aid, he settled upon Leah a certain annuity, the rest of his larger property going to a distant relation, a manufacturer of Manchester.

When this was done, he was much exhausted. After some minutes, when the gentleman was gone, he desired the waiting-woman to leave the room till she was rung for, and, once more, these two strange beings were left alone together.

Leah, who had now had time to recover from the feelings that at first overpowered her, endeavoured to fill his mind with thoughts and hopes, suitable for one in his situation. May we trust she was successful!

"You were, what the world calls, the ruin of my youth," said she; "but if I, a frail, erring creature of clay, have forgiven and loved you so sincerely, how greatly more will He pardon, who is himself Mercy and Love?"

In this strain did her quiet, sweet voice pour balm into the wounds of his spirit. Grant it, Heaven! May my deathbed have such a comforter !

All this while he was rapidly sinking. At length he said, in a voice so low and weak, as scarcely to be heard even by her wakeful

ears,

"Yes, I begin to think there may be yet mercy for me, and that He has sent you, an angel of goodness and love, to tell me of it, and to throw a halo of hope around my deathbed. I am dying. Do not call any one. I should wish to die as I desired to live, in your presence only, Leah. But don't be alarmed. It is so easy! I feel just as if I was awakening from a dream, only the process of change is slower."

"God grant you may awaken from the short fevered dream of this world to a bright everlasting reality!"

"Amen, Leah!-but it is a hard thing to part from you again when I had found you after so long a separation."

This was uttered slowly, and almost by syllables.

In a paroxysm of unsuppressible emotion, she threw herself on the bed. When the fit was over, and allowed her to observe, she saw he breathed no longer. He was dead. And such was the deathbed of a PARRICIDE!

His body was conveyed to Whitestream, and laid in a little gothic tomb, he had himself caused to be constructed, in the churchyard of the parish.

Leah, by the help of the annuity he had left her, followed to that place. She did not long linger behind him. Within a year, she too had sunk. It was her latest request that she should be buried in the same grave with him; but this, from the prejudices of his friends, could not be complied with. The country people, however, made her grave close on the outside of the wall of the tomb; and there she lies, without stone or inscription, or even a flower to record her existence. Whether these things are of consequence to her now, however, I leave, reader, to your quiet thoughts.

Three persons were
Two, to whom the

As for her son, his fate is unknown to me. taken for the crime-but he was not one of them. connexion with the conspiracy could be partly brought home, were imprisoned for six months each-the third was set free. It is to be believed, either that some accident befel him, or that he escaped from the country with the emigrants.

LOVE.

Он! Love is like the belted bee
Bright hovering in spring:
Be wise, and touch him warily,
Or ye may feel his sting!

The honey'd prize will boom away,
Lost o'er the roaring river;
But in the heart the sting will stay,
And, venom'd, work for ever.

Oh! never hung a bonnier bee
On sweeter opening flow'r
Than waked the honey-love in me,
Chance passing at the hour-

But never boy, with wilder spring,
Released his prey in terror,
Than I to feel the hidden sting,

And know my fatal error,

MARC LOGON.