happy am I-oh! this horrible pain!-oh! it is too much for me!-truly happy, I say, to leave my title and my lands to one whose political bias coincides so entirely with my own, as yours, my son ;oh! I can stand this no longer-my moments are numbered, Richard-the agony is too great for me."

Our hero smoothed the pillow of his expiring father, and overcome, as all must be by the moving trial of so sad a scene, professed himself willing and ready to fulfil whatever views Lord Furstenroy might have entertained for him in relation to politics.

"French revolution-cursed philosophers -" pursued the old gentleman again at intervals of a longer and longer continuance; and, as he spoke, the film of death already glazed his lurid eyes, and his hands continued incessantly plucking the bedclothes, with that wild and mysterious motion which is the sure forerunner of dissolution ;-" political economy-mistaken views-theorists-practical men -the family borough-had intended-next dissolution-large majority-House of Peers now-take my place-maintain constitution-no innovationsturn out the Whigs."

The chaplain, who was in attendance, having

been left alone with the old earl for some time, his family were once more admitted. The Countess de Carbonnelle and her husband had arrived from Paris, and hastened with her brother and sister to the bedside of her father to receive his parting benediction. This was the first time that they all had met since the untoward event of Lord, Fletcher's death, and it was a sad meeting. Nevertheless, even at the bedside of the dying man, our hero's eldest sister could not all forget the haughty bearing of her nature, nor lay aside that thirsting for revenge which had burnt with two-fold fury in her bosom since the event of the fatal eleventh. She looked deeply into her brother's eyes, as she pressed his proffered hand, and said, sternly and impressively in his ear, the single word "Remember.”

Meanwhile, the sands of the hour-glass were fleeting rapidly away, and but little strength remained in the old man's veins. "Settlement of my affairs is given-" he muttered almost inaudibly"Lord Carmansdale-jointly with legacies not numerous-happy in another world-oh! my left side-horrible! Mr. Snuffles-body in family vault -consolidate party agricultural interests-oh!

the pain again-conservative measures-God bless you all!-oh!

-conser-va-tive mea

The old man's voice was still-his family left the room in tears-the attendant nurse closed his eyesit was late in the evening.

CHAPTER XIII.

THUS in the short space of two days our hero found himself, by the strange and uncontrollable power of destiny, advanced from the simple condition of Richard Bazancourt to be, first of all, heir-apparent to the earldom, and now himself the sole proprietor, and lord of all. The rapidly consecutive deaths of his elder brother, and of his father, had placed him, all unprepared and unexpecting, on a pinnacle. The public gaze was on him-he was no longer an obscure and humble individual, whose actions and whose conduct may escape reprehension because they escape notice. He had become a peer of England. He was placed in a position which, oh! how many in this warring world would regard as the highest reward of their ambition—as the loftiest triumph of their hopes! Wealth, rank, station, public esteem, the affection

of his friends, commanding talent, personal beauty— all these were his. What others make the crowning object of a long life of toils had fallen upon him unasked, unhoped for, in his early youth. A proud career was now before him, if he chose to dedicate his time and his talents to political or literary fame. The stage was strewed for him with garlands: he had only to appear, in order to receive the plaudits of an admiring world. Oh! how his heart sickened, how his spirit saddened, as he mused on this! How he wished, as he retired to the stillness of his chamber on that fateful night, that the private, instead of the public path of life had been his; that the wife, like the fruitful vine upon the walls of his house, and the young children, like arrows in the hands of a giant, had been reserved for him! One great, mighty, desolating passion had passed over him like the simoom, and, as it swept him with its withering wings, had dried up every source of joy, of hope, of pride, and of ambition, within him. What to him now were the cheers of the crowded senates, or the paragraphic tributes of an adulatory press ? What charm for him had the winning smile of woman, the dalliance of the lighted festival, the choral music, or