indelible shame inflicted on their guiltless lives, by the crime affixed to that of their equally guiltless father? I tremble in dismay before the terrors of an avenging God, whose mercies I have slighted in the hours of prosperity, but whose wrath I dare not anticipate.

I loathe life, poisoned as it is by the consciousness of crimes that render it nearly insupportable; yet I turn with fear and trembling from death-that passage to an eternity of punishment, which conscience tells me I have. but too deeply merited. My dreams are haunted by the sweet face of the angelic Augusta-her whom I so ruthlessly condemned to an untimely grave; the stern and reproachful countenance of my murdered aunt looks menacingly at me; and the assassin's wild and demoniacal laugh rings in my ear, as he threatens me with exposure and infamy. Oh, God! oh, God! how long can nature sustain this torture?

Pity me, Delphine-though I am unworthy of pity, for my life has been one continued career of selfishness and turpitude; and it is only lately that I have awakened to a sense of the faults that have plunged me in guilt, from the depths of which no ray of hope is visible. It is solely by the aid of opiates that I have been able to procure sleep for some months. How my health has not sunk under the weight of remorse and regret that oppresses me, seems miraculous: but it is only the good and beloved who are snatched away; the bad and unloved are left on earth as a punishment and an example.

My maid has just told me that the young man who was to have married the daughter of my poor aunt's faithful steward, renounced her on hearing the charge against her father; and, as she was deeply attached to him, his desertion has preyed so heavily upon her, that, even before the condemnation of her father, her health had become so impaired as to leave little hope of her recovery. This, also, is one of the results of my not having declared his innocence ! But when will the results of my crimes terminate? Adieu! adieu !

FROM LA MARQUISE DE VILLEROI TO MISS MONTRESSOR.

Ma chère Caroline, --How much pain does it give me to be compelled to tell you that I cannot receive you again beneath my roof! Do you think I could have been so unkind towards the friend of my youth as not to have proposed her coming to me immediately on the death of her aunt, had not a cruel and insurmountable obstacle opposed it? You know, chère amie, when you left France, that the expenses of our vast establishment had greatly embarrassed our finances; but, alas! you did not know that the passion for gaming, so fatally indulged in by my husband, had totally ruined us. Maman, after having repeatedly assisted to retard the ruin that threatened, at length became wearied by such frequent demands on her liberality; and, influenced by le Père Maubois, who, I formerly told you, had acquired a perfect dominion over her, has retired to Italy, attended by him, and has there fixed her abode, refusing to lend us any further aid.

Reduced to positive want-having no longer the means of supporting our establishment, or paying our creditors, la Duchesse de Chateauneuf, the aunt of my husband, has received us beneath her roof, after having made a thousand humiliating stipulations; the most bitter of all, that of never permitting you to enter her house. You may remember, chère amie, how much she disliked you ever since she detected you mimicking her one day before a brilliant circle. How well I remember it, and how every body laughed! Next to maman, you were the person she most detested; and, therefore, you will at once perceive that, depending on her wholly, as we do, it is impossible for us to comply with your wishes. You

can form no idea of the triste life we lead in her antiquated mansion, Rue de Grenelle, in the Faubourg St. Germains. Would you believe it? she prohibits my receiving the Duc de Chatillion, or la Comtesse de Hauteforte, to whom, as you know, my husband has been so long attached. She will not allow either of us to have écarté of an evening, but insists on either of us playing piquet with her for half francs. No box at the operano visits to the theatres; in short, no any thing that is agreeable or rational. Then, she has the very worst cook in France; consequently, we have no choice between being starved or poisoned, so execrable is her cuisine. I am confident you would pity us were you to witness the privations we endure.

I am sure notre tante only patronises us to vex maman, who has thrown us off; but, as she is rich and old, we must please her, and my husband will be her heir I only hope she will not long keep him an expectant one. Comme c'est drole, that Miladi Annandale should die because she was suspected! How strange and exaggerated your compatriots are in their notions! Je ne comprend rien de tout cela. I only comprehend that, if every lady in Paris who is suspected chose, therefore, to die, we should have very few left in society.

Do you know, ma chère amie, that you become tout à fait originale dans vos idées, and that you really require to leave your land of fogs, and mix with reasonable people here, to dispel the ennui, or devils blue, as the English say, that have taken possession of your brain. You think yourself very wicked, guilty of des grands crimes, and you write as the heroines of tragedy speak: but I think you only an unlucky, and not a wicked person; and so thinks mon mari, to whom I have showed your letters. It is the motive, and not the results, that constitutes the crime.

Your first error turned out unfortunately-that was simply an indiscretion; and, had not ce mauvais sujet that caught your youthful fancy been ruined, and left sans

sous, he would not have again appeared to cast a shadow on the horizon of your prospects-this I call unlucky. When you opened the window, and he entered, you had no evil motive towards your aunt, malgré she was un peu revêche, and not un peu ennuyeuse. His poverty tempted him to take her money and jewels; and his safety, probably, urged him to the rest. All this was very unlucuky; but his poverty was, as I think I have satisfactorily proved, the cause of all cette affaire tragique; and you have, consequently, nothing of which to accuse yourself that I can see, except not having chosen a lover neither likely to ruin himself nor to be ruinednor capable, even in a case of necessity, of strangling old ladies.

With regard to Miladi Annandale, you have been, also, unlucky. It is true, the triste position in which you found yourself chez madame votre tante, compelled you to urge your young friend to a marriage for which she had lost all taste: but, had she been a reasonable woman, she might have, notwithstanding, been very happy; for, with a good fortune, a brilliant position, and a weak, indulgent husband, what more could she desire? It is not your fault that all these agrémens sufficed not to satisfy her-the fault rests with herself. She falls in love with that imbecile milord, whose stupid name I forget; you wish to enable her to marry him, and take yourself the man she dislikes: what could be more rational or agreeable? She mars this judicious and feasible scheme solely by her unaccountable scruples and false notions; then, perversely, will not be consoled; and consequently-dies: while you, absurdly, blame yourself; as if you, or any other reasonable person, could have possibly foreseen such a termination to the comedy you had prepared, but which her entêtement alone has converted into a tragedy.

You are unhappy, too, because she has left you an independence. Of all the incomprehensible occurrences which you have related to me, your contrition on this account puzzles my brain the most; for it appears to me that such a circumstance should only be a cause of re

joicing. You say that she was an angel; and, as I have formed no very definite notions of the angelic state, I am perfectly willing to believe your assertion-especially as she was, certainly, utterly unlike all the women I ever either saw or heard described. Supposing, then, your classification to be accurate, the earth, undoubtedly, was no fit place for her; and you should, therefore, exult that she has repaired to a more congenial sphere, leaving you the possession of her terrestrial honours.

This, chère Caroline, is my philosophy. I owe it to you; for you must remember, when you first enlightened me, I was the slave of certain old-fashioned prejudices, which you persuaded me to discard. Ever since this period, I have endeavoured to make life as agreeable as possible, leaving the rest to chance, which you have taught me to believe produces all things for the best. I have always thought, and your letters have more fully convinced me, that poverty is the cause of every evil. I mean, therefore, to eschew this most tempting of all the demons to the utmost of my power; and as the bequests of your aunt, and la romanesque miladi, have secured you a comfortable independence, you are safe, even should you not marry ce faible milord. Why abandon the philosophy you used to be so proud of, and in which you took such pains to make me a proficient? If you find England so dull, why not come to Paris, and establish yourself with some one of the many dames de haut rang, ruinées, who would but be too happy to enact the role of chaperon until you marry?

Adieu, chère amie! Mon mari m'a chargé de vous dire mille choses aimables de sa part. Write to me often, and believe me always

Votre amie devouée Delphine, Marquise de Villeroi.