fond of high life and low-necked dresses, music, birds, and camelias. Captain Belgrave has a great fancy for the charming widow. This is a secret, however. You and I know it, and so does Mewker.

II.

It is Sunday in Little-Crampton-a summer Sunday. The old-fashioned flowers are blooming in the old-fashioned gardens, and the last vibration of the old rusty bell in the century-old belfry seems dying off, and melting away in fragrance. Outside, the village is quiet, but within the church there is an incessant plying of fans and rustling of dresses. The Belgraves are landed at the porch, and Spec and Shat whirl the family carriage into the grave-yard. The Mewkers enter with due decorum. Adolphus drops his hymn-book into the pew in front, as he always does. The little flatulent organ works through the voluntary. The sleek head of the Rev. Mr. Spat is projected toward the audience out of the folds of his cambric handkerchief; and after doing as much damage to the simple and beautiful service as he can by reading it, flourishes through the regular old Spatsonian

sermon; its tiresome repetitions and plagiarisms, with the same old rising and falling inflections, the same old tremulous tone toward the end, as if he were crying; the same old recuperative method by which he recovers his lost voice in the last sentence, when it was all but gone; and the same old gesture by which the audience understand that his labors (and theirs) are over for the morning. Then the congregation departs with the usual accompaniments of dresses rustling, and pew-doors slamming; and Mr. Mewker descends from the choir and sidles up the aisle, nursing his knobs of elbows in his skinny fingers, and congratulates the Rev. Mr. Spat upon the excellent discourse he had delivered, and receives the customary quid pro quo in the shape of a compliment upon the excellent singing in the choir. This account adjusted, Mr. Mewker shuffles home beside the lovely widow; and Mrs. Mewker and the small fry of members follow in their wake.

"I have looked into the records in the county clerk's office," Mewker says in a whisper, to his sister, "and the property is all right. That old Thing, (unconscious Augusta Belgrave, rolling home behind Spec and Shat, do you hear this?)

that old Thing, and that old fool of a book-worm (Adolphus) can be packed off after the wedding, and then we can arrange matters between us. Spat understands me in this, and intends to be hand and glove with Belgrave, so as to work upon him. He will, he must do it, for he knows that his remaining in this church depends upon me." Here Mr. Mewker was interrupted by one of the young Mewkers, who came running up, hat in hand. "Oh! pa, look there! see those beautiful climbing roses growing all over that old tree!" "Jacob," said Mewker, catching him by the hair, and rapping his head with his bony knuckles until the tears came, "haven't I told you not to speak of such trivial things on the Sabbath? How dare you (with a repetition of raps) think of climbing roses so soon after church? Go (with a fresh clutch in the scalp of Mewker, Junior), go to your mother, and when I get home I will punish you." Mewker resumed the whispered conversation. "Belgrave is ruled entirely by his sister, but between Spat and me, she can be blinded, I think. If she should suspect, now, she would interfere, of course, and Belgrave would not dare to disobey her. But if we can get him committed once in

Mr.

some way, he is such a coward that he would be entirely in my power. Dear," he said aloud to Mrs. M., "how did you like the sermon ?" Angelic," replies Mrs. Mewker. "That's my opinion, too," responds Mewker. "Angelic, angelic. Spat is a lovely man, my dear. What is there for dinner?"

If there were some feminine meter by which Harriet Lasciver's soul could be measured, it would indicate "good" pretty high up on the scale. Yet she had listened to this after-church discourse of her brother not only with complacency, but with a full and unequivocal assent to all he had proposed. So she would have listened, so assented to anything, no matter what, proposed by him; and all things considered, it was not surprising. Even as continued attrition wears the angles of the flint until it is moulded into the perfect pebbles, so had her nature been moulded by her brother. He had bullied her in her childhood and in her womanhood, except when there was a purpose in view which he could better accomplish by fawning; and her natural good disposition, so indurated by these opposed modes of treatment, had become as insensible to finer emotions as her

heart was callous to its own impulses. There was one element in his composition which at times had cast a gloss upon his actions. It was his piety! God help us! that any one should allude to that but with reverence and love! Nor do I here speak of it but as a profession, an art, or specious showing forth of something that was not real, but professed, in order to accomplish other ends. What profited her own experience, when Harriet Lasciver was so far imposed upon as to believe her brother's professions sincere? What though all his life he had been a crooked contriver and plotter, malicious in his enmity, and false in his friendship; and she knew it? Yet, as she could not reconcile it with his affected sanctity, she could not believe it. That wonderful power which men seldom, and women never analyze-hypocrisy, held her entangled in its meshes, and she was his instrument to be guided as he chose. Every noble trait true woman possesses-pity, tenderness, love, and high honorwere commanded by an influence she could not resist. Her reason, nay, her feelings were dormant, but her faith slept securely upon her brother's religion!

In this instance there was another consideration