you, yet! Honour among thieves, I say!-I'll know more about this, or you shall be free before morning."

"Unloose me," said Hopkins, "and it shall be the best day's work you ever did! I know the cause of all this!"

"Leave him alone, and don't be a fool!" said Bill, or it may be worse for you. Bring the rum bottle, and the pipes, and glasses into another room, then I will explain more to you. You don't know what a prize we have got!" Then turning to Hopkins, as he took up the candle, he said, "Good night,—and pleasant dreams to you!" and locking the door, he left the prisoner in darkness.

Hopkins sat alone, and heard their voices rise and fall as they conversed together in an adjoining room;-heard them laughing at one moment, then in high dispute at the next; sometimes he caught the sounds of a song, then of a deep and awful oath; until drink at last overpowered them, and all around was silent. Then his thoughts reverted to himself—to what he had done in his life-time-to the danger of his present situation; and he doubted not but that Squire Ingledew was at the bottom of it-that they intended to murder him; and he knew how unfitted he was to die-knew that he deserved all which had befallen him. "Had I but kept my good resolutions," murmured Hopkins to himself, "I should not now have been here." Then his mind became excited; he felt afraid—fancied he heard the footsteps of his murderers approaching; and at last he prayed to Heaven to forgive him his sins. The tears rolled down his dark furrowed cheeks, and he attempted in vain to uplift his hand and wipe them away he had forgotten, whilst he prayed, that he was bound, and a prisoner. But we must leave him alone amid the darkness and the silence, and turn to other seenes in our story.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOW GODFREY MALVERN CONSOLED HIMSELF DURING THE ABSENCE

CIVILIZED AGE, WHICH

OF EMMA.-A QUEER CHAPTER FOR THIS
MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND WILL
BE FOUND TRUE TO NATURE, A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE.

GODFREY MALVERN was naturally very kind-hearted; so much so, that he had many a time given away the last shilling he possessed

in the world, and been put to his shifts the same day to raise the means to carry on' until the morrow. No poor author, however humble his station or talent might be, had to ask twice to borrow a sovereign, while Godfrey had one in his pocket; and sometimes Mr. Smith and Tom Grinder were a long time before they returned the loan. With such feelings, the reader will readily guess, how eagerly he sympathised with poor Mrs. Hopkins, and the pains he took to ascertain what had befallen her husband. He spent days in anxious and fruitless enquiries; and this excitement did much towards turning his thoughts from the absence of Emma. Tom Grinder went with him into all kinds of holes and corners to hunt for Hopkins: policemen were also on the look-out in every quarter, but all were of no avail. It was when he had been missing more than a week, that his wife received the following letter.

"MY DEAR INJURED MARY, "I am alive, though in danger. Where I am, I dare not say, as it might endanger the life of one through whose kindness I am enabled to send you these few lines. Squire Ingledew, however, is the cause of my absence-of my imprisonment! This I have ascertained. Kiss my dear children, and remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Malvern. I wish I could see them. But all may yet turn out well. Remember me in your prayers. God bless you, Mary.

"Your loving husband,

"JOHN HOPKINS."

After the receipt of this letter, Godfrey began to relax in his enquiries; he did, however, write to his father-in-law, but Squire Ingledew either never received the letter, or, if he did, refused to answer it.Godfrey ascertained that Mrs. Hopkins was not in the immediate want of money; and after this, he troubled himself as little as possible about the matter. He had now the book to write which he had bargained for with the publisher; he had also many new acquaintances to call upon since he attended Lady Smileall's soirée. Mr. Marall had

presented him with one or two orders for the theatres. Godfrey in return had written a few articles for his paper; and he now frequently called upon Lady Smileall. Maria too was very often there, and she was always glad to see Godfrey. Whenever he came, she seemed confused; when he went away, she sighed, hung down her head, and looked sad. She was very handsome, and wrote very pretty verses.— She never showed them at first to Godfrey herself; Lady Smileall did this; and when Godfrey praised them, she would say, "It's a pity you

were ever married, Mr. Malvern! what a happy couple you would have been!-poor Maria!" And when Godfrey paid any pretty little compliment to Maria herself, she would lift up the dark lashes of her eyes, and looking at him—(such a look as would have turned the eyes of a saint earthward, in the midst of his devotions!) say, "What would your wife think, Godfrey, if she heard you?" Yes, she already called him Godfrey, and he called her Maria, the dark-eyed,'-the 'darkglancing, the night-haired,'—the soul-searching,'-'love-looking,' -the 'Cleopatra of Marias.' And Lady Smileall termed Godfrey her Antony, then left them seated on the ottoman together for hours.— Poor dear Lady Smileall! she thought no harm; she only thought how poetical it was for two young people to be fond of each other's society, and one of them married; and whenever she spoke of them to her friends, she quoted that mischief-making line of Shakspeare's, and said,

"The course of true-love never did run smooth;"

and as a proof of the truth of her quotation, would point to where Godfrey and Maria sat, her hand in his,' her eyes on him; both young, both handsome, all soul, all poetry, all intellect. She never remembered that they were man and woman, frail children of our mother Eve; she believed they were too poetical to be like other people. No! she said, "It was delightful to watch the workings of such Platonic affection, that it was the very sublimity of the triumph of soul over the body-the etherial ascendancy of spirit above matter, and the only living illustration of such a novel as she intended herself some day or another to write." She thought it too spiritual to be natural-too ideal to be real. Forgetting that there is no cant about passion-that affection, whether sincere or not, is always dangerous— that love, like hunger, though not always real, is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Lady Smileall was a silly, empty-headed, unthinking old lady. She quoted Burns from 'hearsay,' without reading his poetry; had she but have read his works, she would have known a little more of human nature.

One evening it was arranged that a few of Lady Smileall's friends should go to the theatre together, to clap and applaud a most wretched farce which one of her pet poetlings had written. Godfrey and Maria were pressed to join the party; and, after much persuasion, accepted the invitation. It was but a 'poor house,' and our hero and the young lady had a box to themselves. That night the first piece chanced to be an old play which had not been acted for many years. It was one of