every feeling of respect for Mrs Dempster, her employers, the magistrates, found it necessary to inform her, that they could not permit her to retain the school any longer under such circumstances, as it was threatened with utter annihilation by the gradual diminution of the number of pupils. She proposed to her husband to allow him regularly the full half of her earnings, if he would only stay in some other place, and never again intrude upon her. But he scorned to be bought off, as he said. He insisted rather upon her giving up the school, and accompanying him to Edinburgh, where, with the little sum she had saved, and what besides they could raise by the sale of her superfluous furniture, he would enter into business on his own account, and should never again be obliged to work for either herself or for him. The poor woman had no alternative. She was compelled to abandon the scene where, for so many years, she had enjoyed the comforts of life and the respect of society, in order to be dragged at the chariot wheels, or rather at the cart's tail, of her husband's vices and fortunes, through scenes to which she shuddered to look forward.

In the capital, Dempster's design of entering into business, if he ever seriously entertained it, was no more talked of, Fleshed once again with a taste of his former indulgences, he rushed headlong into that infamous career which already had twice ended in voluntary banishment. His wife's finances were soon exhausted; but, with the barbarity of a demon taskmaster, he would every day leave her with a threat, which she but too well knew he would execute, of beating her, if she should not be able to produce next morning a sum necessary for the gratification of his wretched appetites. It was now in vain to attempt that mode of subsistence by which she had hitherto supported herself. So long as she was haunted by this evil genius, that was impracticable. By the interest, however, of some of her former friends, she obtained a scanty and precarious employment for her needle, by which she endeavoured to supply the cravings of her husband, and her own simpler wants. From

morning early, through the whole day, and till long after midnight, this modest and virtuous woman would sit in her humble lodging, painfully exerting herself at a tedious and monotonous task, that she might be able to give to her husband in the morning that sum without which she feared he would only rush into greater mischief, if not into absolute crime. No vigils were grudged, if she only had the gratification at last of seeing him return. Though he often stayed away the whole night, she never could permit herself to suppose that he would do so again, but she would sit bending over her work, or, if she could work no more from positive fatigue, gazing into the dying embers of her fire, watching and watching for the late and solitary foot, which, by a strange exertion of the sense, she could hear and distinguish long ere any sound would have been perceptible to another person. Alas, for the sleepless nights which woman so often endures for the sake of her cruel helpmate! Alas, for the generous and enduring affection which woman cherishes so often for the selfish heart by which it is enslaved!

A time at length arrived when the supplies purveyed by Mrs Dempster from her own earnings were quite incompetent to satisfy this living vampire. She saw him daily rush from her presence, threatening that he would bring her to the extremity of disgrace by the methods he would take to obtain money. She lived for weeks in the agonising fear that the next moment would bring her news of some awful crime committed by his hand, and for which he was likely to pay the last penalty of the law. She hardly knew who or what were his associates; but occasionally she learned, from mutterings in his sleep, that his practices were of the most flagitious and debased kind. He seemed to be the leader or director of a set of wretches who made a livelihood by midnight burglary. At length, one day he came home at an unusual hour, accompanied by three strangers, with whom he entered into conversation in the next room. Between that apartment and the room in which she was sitting, there was a door, which, being never used, was locked up. Through

the thin panels, she overheard a scheme laid for entering the house of a villa in the neighbourhood, in order to rob the tenant, whom they described as a gentleman just returned from the East Indies, with a great quantity of plate and other valuables. One of the persons in conference had visited the house, through the kindness of a servant, to whom he had made up as a sweetheart, and he therefore was able to lead the attack through such a channel as rendered success almost certain. The nabob,' said this person, 'sleeps in a part of the house distant from the room in which his boxes are for the present deposited. But should he attempt to give us any disturbance, we have a remedy for that, you know '—and here the listener's blood ran cold at hearing a pistol cocked. From all that she could gather, her husband was only to keep watch at the outside of the house, while the rest should enter in search of the booty. It is impossible to describe the horror with which she heard the details of the plot. Her mind was at first in such a whirl of distracted feeling, that she hardly knew where she stood; but as the scheme was to be executed that very evening, she saw it necessary to exert herself quickly and decisively; and, therefore, she immediately went to the house of a friend, and wrote an anonymous note to the person most concerned, warning him of a design-she could use no more specific language-which she knew was entertained against a certain part of his property, and recommending him to have it removed to some more secure part of his house. To make quite sure of this note being delivered in time, she took it herself to the gate, and left it with the porter, whom she strictly enjoined to give it immediately into the hands of his master. She then went home, and spent an evening of misery more bitter than the cup of death itself. She had formerly passed many a lonely night at her cheerless fireside, while waiting for the return of her wretched husband; but she never spent one like this. When she reflected upon the happiness of her early days, and the splendid prospects which were then said to lie before her, and contrasted them with the

misery into which she had been so suddenly plunged, not by any fault of her own, but, as it appeared, by the mere course of destiny, she could have almost questioned the justice of that Supreme Power by which she piously believed the concerns of this lower world to be adjusted. What dire calamities had sprung to her from one unfortunate step! What persecutions she had innocently endured! How hopeless was her every virtuous exertion against the perverse counteraction of a being from whom society could not permit her to be disjoined! And, finally, what an awful outburst of wretchedness was at this moment, to appearance, impending over her! Then she recalled one gentle recollection, which occasionally would steal into her mind, even in her darkest hours, and fill it with an agreeable, but still painful light-the thought of Russell-Russell, the kind and good, whom, in a moment of girlish vanity, she had treated harshly, so that he vanished from her presence for ever, and even from the place where he had suffered her scorn. Had fate decreed that she should have been united to that endeared mate of her childhood, how different might have been her lot! how different, also, perhaps, might have been his course of life; for she feared that her ungenerous cruelty had also made shipwreck of his noble nature. meditations were suddenly disturbed by the entrance of Dempster, who rushed into her room, holding a handkerchief upon his side, and pale, gory, and breathless, fell upon the ground before her. Almost ere she had time to ascertain the reality of this horrid vision, quick footsteps were heard upon the stair. The open door gave free admission; and in a moment the room was half filled with watchmen, at the head of whom appeared a middleaged gentleman of a prepossessing though somewhat disordered exterior. "This,' he exclaimed, 'is the villain: secure him, if he be yet alive; but I fear he has already met the punishment which is his due.' The watchmen raised Dempster from the ground, and, holding his face to the light, found that the glaze of death was just taking effect upon his eyes. The unhappy woman shrieked as

These

she beheld the dreadful spectacle, and would have fallen upon the ground if she had not been prevented by the stranger, who caught her in his arms. Her eyes, when they first re-opened, were met by those of RUSSELL!

It would be difficult to describe the feelings with which these long-severed hearts again recognised each other; the wretchedness into which she was plunged, by learning that her well-intended efforts had unexpectedly led to the death of her husband; or the returning tide of grateful and affectionate emotion which possessed his bosom, on being informed that those efforts had saved his life, not to speak of the deep sensation of pity with which he listened to the tale of her life. A tenderer feeling than friendship was now impossible, and, if it could have existed, would have hardly been in good taste; but Russell, now endowed with that wealth which, when he had it not, would have been of so much avail, contented himself to use it in the pious task of rendering the declining years of Eliza Farney as happy as her past life had been miserable.

SHOWMAN LIFE.

IT has been said, that one half of the world does not know how the other half lives;' and with a view to remedy this shortcoming in knowledge, there have of late been revelations of all kinds regarding all sections of the unknowing and unknown. Some of these revelations are satisfactory-we refer to style of narration, and not moral results-and others are very much the reverse; but the best of such descriptions necessarily fall far short of what could be communicated by any of the parties themselves, were they possessed of the requisite literary ability. Events or modes of life can never be so well narrated or described by those who record them 'secondhand,' as they would be other circumstances being