we most desire. This comes home to us with our first grief, when the burden is too heavy to be borne, and life is a weariness, and all things are vexation of spirit; when our idol is shattered, or our creed has dissolved in our hands. And it returns once more when Death stands at our door, and the doctor has said his say, and the mourners gather around, and the world's wealth cannot make us live to see the morning's sun.

CHAPTER VI.

FOREBODINGS FULFILLED.

THREE years passed away, and George, though he had not yet been favoured with that one brilliant occasion for display of which all young barristers dream, had been marked as a rising man, and one likely to prove a sound and able lawyer. He rarely or never alluded to the Tremletts, and, observing this, I also avoided mentioning them.

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I was aware that the young couple had resided principally at Paris, and that Mr. Tremlett had not been regarded as one very careful of his person, his health, or his reputation. Concerning his wife, the account was different: my informant described her as a quiet, elegant woman, much given to solitude, that she was with her husband

as often as his somewhat questionable pursuits permitted; but when apart from him she lived in retirement, and devoted herself to her little son, then not more than a year old. About this time old Mr. Tremlett, who had for many months been in a state of dotage,' began to sink rapidly, and died before his son could be summoned.

The physician, under whose charge Mrs. Tremlett had been placed, told me, as a curious fact, that at that precise period the poor lady's malady took a new aspect, she becoming exceedingly lowspirited; the tears were often in her eyes; she rejected her food, and would hardly speak. It had been thought unnecessary, owing to her condition, to inform her of her husband's illness and death; and as she was occasionally very destructive, and only tolerant of that peculiarly ornamented attire before described, there had been no idea of supplying her with black clothes; therefore it could not be from any actual information that she fell into this melancholy. A few weeks after, the disease recurred to its original type of chronic

high mania, and continued so to the day of her death.*

Mr. Tremlett came over and attended his father's funeral, where he expedited the forms and ceremonies, I was told, with more zeal than show of affection; and then for a short time he and his wife resided on the paternal estate. One day a friend of mine asked me if I had heard that Hall was in the market. Now I had been

so much engaged that, as it chanced, I had heard little or nothing of the proceedings, and I was surprised to hear it.

* Quite a similar case occurred in my own experience, where for years the patient had not uttered a coherent sentence: her husband died, though I was not aware of it for some days after; owing to her indigent circumstances, she wore her usual attire.; indeed, her attendant was ignorant of the death; but the poor woman wept incessantly, and one day demanded, in her broad provincial dialect, a black gown; on my being told of this, I ordered that it should be given her ; and she wore it apparently with satisfaction, though she never would give any reason why she asked for it. In this instance the type of the disease seemed permanently changed, and after many months of intermittent melancholy she left cured. Of course it would not be very easy to give a rational theory for this, otherwise than there being a singular coincidence of sympathy.

"Not that, surely," I said, "for it is entailed." "That is just what puzzles me,” he replied; "but, at any rate, it is advertised. You know he was dipped a little, they said, in some foreign mines; and I'm told he is behaving very hardly, and screwing up his tenantry to the last farthing; he is borrowing money at all hands, and has projected great improvements, and had intended to carry them out, but I suppose he is tired of it. Pray, had his wife any settlement on her marriage?"

As I did not know, I could give no information. “Well, he has a boy, but it is only a delicate child; failing Tremlett's children, the propertyall that is tied up, at least-would go to a cousin of his, William Mainwaring, who is now governor naming one of our smaller colonies.

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This intelligence recurred to my thoughts several times that day; but at last I completely forgot it, until a few months later, when I was told that the Hall had not been sold, but let; that Mr. Tremlett had parted with his horses, carriages, and furniture, dismissed most