It was towards night-fall, about six months after the evening on which these events occurred, that a man closely wrapped in his cloak, issued from a house situated in the Strand, then formed by a range of buildings running along the bank of the river, adorned with spacious gardens and forming the residence of persons of high rank. The evening was still, and the air unusually calm and sultry for the early season of the year; but no busy passengers were treading the footways of the city-no vehicles were rolling over the deserted streets, and the long rank grass of the field was growing through the interstices of the stones The pestilence was raging! Hundreds of the inhabitants of London sank daily before its blasting breath, and men whispered that the wrath of Heaven would depopulate the city; street after street was passed by the solitary way-farer, who walked with a quick step, and his cloak drawn round his mouth, without his encountering man or beast, or hearing a sound to break the death like silence pervading the modern Babylon; but as he entered still deeper into the heart of the metropolis, the heavy rumble of the pest-cart was heard in the distance, and the horrid hoarse cry of the drivers, requiring the living inmates of the houses to bring forth the bodies of those over whom the plague-fiend had cast the shadow of his wing, sounded sullenly on his ear. Almost every other house was marked with a red cross, while the awful inscription-" Lord have mercy upon us!" scrawled beneath the symbol, gave fearful token that its inhabitants were struck with the infection. Af ter turning down various lanes and alleys, the man arrived and halted before the house where the husband of the unfortunate Marian had breathed his last. He rapped loudly with his knuckles at the closed door, and it was soon opened by the woman to whom the ruin belonged. Now, Dame Alison," he said, suf fering the cloak to fall partially from his face," has your lodger determined whether she will or will not watch to-night by my master's bedside; be speedy in your answer, for I would not willingly stop longer than I can help within a neighborhood where this is the only house not marked with the bloody cross." 46 Alas! good Ralph," returned the female shuddering," I fear it will not be long without the sign." "How!" exclaimed the man, starting back,-" have ye the plague within your walls?" "I fear so," replied the woman sadly, shaking her head: "The youngest child of the poor thing above stairs has been dead only two hours ago, and it looks as if the hand of the pestilence was on it." 44 "Then it will be of little use to ask her to follow me to the couch of my master,-give ye good even, Mistress Alison," and Ralph, again folding his cloak round his head, was turning away. Stop," said Alison; when I spoke to her last night she gladly consented to accept the offer, and though her poor baby is scarcely cold in her arms, yet I am sure that she will make a sore struggle to earn what may keep her remaining children from hunger." "Is she so poor, then ?" asked Ralph in a tone of pity. "Poor!" repeated Alison; “ wretchedly poor; but follow me and you shall judge for yourself;" and the woman trimming the flickering flame of the lamp she carried in her hand, led the way up the dilapidated staircase. In the same cheerless chamber, where the reader last beheld her, was seated Marian Stanley, her dead baby clasped to her breast, and her other children sobbing at her feet, weeping more for the tears of agony which bedewed their mother's cheeks, than for the actual loss she had sustained Her lastborn was still strained to her bosom,-her lips were still resting on its forehead, though the livid hue of the plague-spot was discoloring the flesh. The entrance of the hostess was totally unnoticed, and it was not until the woman had addressed her twice or thrice that she succeeded in attracting the attention of the mourner. Must it go already?" she asked, pressing the inanimate clay she feared to part with, closer to her breast. "It is not of your poor child that I would speak," returned Alison, "but concerning your willingness to watch by the sick gentleman's couch whose servant was here yesternight." Marian raised her hand to her throbbing brow, and gazed wildly on her hostess as if endeavoring to recall her recollection of the circumstance. "Ay, I remember," she said, rising, and speaking with forced calmness," where is he, good dame?" "I am at hand, mistress," said Ralph, entering the room," and wait for your resolve." Marian hesitated; but a single glance at her halfnaked children seemed to throw off the overwhelming cloud of grief that oppressed her mind, and laying her dead child softly down, she motioned the messenger from the sick man to lead the way. "Do not let them take it while I am absent," she whispered to Alison as she passed; "I must see it once more before I part with it for ever." The woman pressed her hand in token of her attention, and Marian followed the domestic down the staircase to the open street. The same gloomy silence continued throughout the city, and neither of them felt inclined to break the stillness. Marian did not unclose her lips, not even to ask the question of who the person was, by whom she was to watch, while her companion strode quickly on without uttering a single word until he arrived at the mansion from which he had first appeared. The house was large and well built, presenting a striking contrast to the mouldering ruin they had left; but even this gave awful demonstration of a mighty pestilence overhanging the metropolis. Rank weeds were waving over the very threshold stone, and the hall door, thrown wide open, evinced that the all-absorbing horror of the ravaging disease prevented the occupants from thinking of the opportunity they afforded to the robber and the assassin. They entered, and Ralph directing Marian to remain in the hall, while he procured a light, left her, but very shortly appeared again bearing a lamp in his hand. "Follow my guidance, mistress," he said, ascending a flight of stairs, "and I will show you where my master lies." He soon stopped, and opening a cham- over the face of the sleeper. He did not struggle,ber door, went softly into the room. perhaps death had already done its work, but it was not until the cold hand relaxed its clasp, and fell heavily on the bed, that a fearful whisper seemed to hiss the name of murderess in the ear of Marian. She started from the couch, and pressing her hands upon her hot throbbing brow, stared with glaring eyes and reeling brain on the bed where her victim lay. The deadly pillow still remained over his face, with the impression of her arm fresh upon the linen, and the sparkling jewel still glittered on the lifeless hand, mocking the cold inanimate flesh with its useless splendor. "It is no dream," she muttered, partially He sleeps now," said the domestic, "but do you go in, seat yourself by his bed, and be ready to give to him the medicines he may ask for when he wakes, if wake he ever will again," he added as he passed Marian, and descended the stairs. She entered, and following the servant's directions. sat down near the bed. A lamp was burning on a table, but the oil was nearly exhausted, and the waving, quivering flame shed but an imperfect light on the objects in the chamber. The person to whose wants she was to at tend, was, as his servant had remarked, in a deep sleep, so deep that it was only an occasional low re-recovering from her stupor, and glancing at the ring, spiration that distinguished it from the sleep of death. The face of the slumberer was completely hidden by the rich coverlid of the bed, but the thin emaciated hand, which hung over the clothes, sufficiently at tested that both time and disease had made terrible ravages on his person. The hours wore wearily on, but the old man still remained in his unbroken slumber, the flickering light waxed fainter and fainter, and Marian rising from her seat, proceeded to the door, that she might obtain oil to replenish the lamp. She turned as she passed, to look at the figure of the invalid,-it was a fatal glance!—the hand of the sufferer attracted her atten. tion. On one of the long fleshless fingers, rested a glittering jewel, and as she gazed, a dark thought rushed through her brain, "My children are starving," she muttered, "while I feel sick for want of proper food-the possession of this shining bauble would set us above want for ever; while he, to whom it belongs, if he ever wakes from this slumber, will never feel the loss." "She approached the bed, all was silent, save the low breathing of the sleeper, who still lay motionless upon his pillow,-twice was her trembling hand stretched forth, and twice was it withdrawn, but as the picture of her perishing children rose up before her, it steeled her resolution to the act.-" God for give me!" she murmured, as she bent over the bed; "it is not for myself I do this deed." Again was her hand directed to the jewel; this time she touched it, and cautiously and gradually endeavored to draw the gem away she had just succeeded in removing it, when, either that the slumberer was awakened, or that some slight convulsion ran through his frame, the long bony fingers of the sick man closed firmly on her hand. With a thrill of terror she recoiled and struggled to disengage herself from the cold clammy grasp of the invalid; but in vain, she was a prisoner. Fear, shame, the horror of detection, rushed through her mind, and making a frenzied clutch with her free hand at one of the pillows of the bed, she seized it, and with closed eyes and clenched teeth, pressed it : which now, with the strange inconsistency of human nature, she shuddered at the thought of touching."Fool!" she continued, smiling bitterly, as conquering her emotion she again approached the bed; “weak fool! why do ye fear to take that, for which ye have perilled all, and made yourself a," the words seemed to choak her utterance, and closing her lips firmly together, she drew the ring away, and with another strong effort pulled the pillow from the face of her victim: she shrank back, as if her eyes were seared by the lightning of heaven, for she looked on the livid features of Stephen Glanville! "Hark! what shriek was that?" exclaimed Ralph to one of his fellow-servants, who shared his pallet in a remote corner of the mansion. ""Tis from our master's chamber," returned his comrade. "Ha! there it is again; some mischief is doing, or I am no true man." The men hastily huddled on their clothes, and hurried to their master's apartment. A shout of maniacal laughter greeted their entrance into the room, and the domestics started back with horror, as they beheld the figure of Marian seated on the bed, gibbering and making mouths as she played with the grey hairs of her dead father. The sequel of this melancholy story is soon told: the light of reason had fled for ever from the mind of the wretched parricide, and the lapse of a few days beheld her consigned to the grave, her last moments being spent in calling alternately on her father and her children. The fate of her offspring is uncertain; but as they were never after heard of, it was supposed they were mingled with the victims of the pestilence. Reader, the tale is finished, few, perhaps, will read it to its conclusion; but if it be the cause of one parent pausing, before he abandons an erring child for ever, the story of Marian Glanville will not have been penned in vain. This little poem is not original, and I know not whether I may venture to call it a direct translation. Benedetti was the author of a great many tragedies, which were played with success, at Florence, from about the year 1-03 to 1820. His life was, nevertheless, a series of mistortunes. Being, at last, implicated in the plots of the Carbonari, he fled to Pistoja, and, finding himself still pressed by the police, put an end to himself with a pistol. THE MAN OF MANY HOPES. BY DOUGLAS JERROLD, ENGLAND. CHAPTER VIII. (Concluded from Page 317.) NINE o'clock, and the party still at cards. "There -there-it's becoming dissipation," cried young Sloth "I'm quite quite satisfied." And well he might be, for Trumps had lost to him and Mims all his first winnings, with the important addition of seven hundred pounds. "I-I told you-Mr. Sloth," said Titus, his brain in a whirl with wine and a confused sense of his loss "I told you I had no cash about me." "Don't mention it-here's pen, ink, and paper; your acknowledgment, and the money any time in the course of to-day or to-morrow." "If something doesn't turn up," thought Trumps, with a pang, as he signed the necessary document "if something doesn't turn up”—and he staggered from the table to a couch. "Well! gentlemen," exclaimed Mrs. Cagely, as she bounced into the room-"if ever I suffer any such doings in my house again-drinking and playing all night! Had I known it, do you think I could have rested in my bed?" "Come here, mother," said young Sloth, in an af fectionate voice, to the matronly hostess-"come here. Now, tell me where that jade Maria is, and I'll give you fifty." did I?" asked Trumps, and the question was answered by a clap of laughter on the part of Mrs. Cagely. “Diamonds, forsooth! all your diamonds are on your knees, I take it," said the jocose hostess. “Come, all's not gone," thought Titus, glancing at the paste in blue-steel, “I have my buckles." "John, call a coach," ordered Mrs. Cagely, who was particularly assiduous in assisting Trumps to the door; and that the coachman might, by no possibility, drive to the wrong police office, the good woman ordered her footman to take his seat upon the box. "Mind, John, you know where," said Mrs. Cagely, as the coach drove off. "How very good of her to send her servant!" thought Titus, who in a few minutes was conveyed to the hall of justice. John assisted Trumps to descend; and as he led the tipsy Titus to the door of the office, he muttered gratefully, “saved mistress's bail, however." "I shall not be long, John," said Titus, and John, with a grin, touched his hat. Ere Trumps entered the office, he turned again, and saw a carriage suddenly stop at the door. The door was opened, and, to his astonishment, Sir Jeremy Sloth discovered himself. But what was the surprise of Trumps when he beheld the gentle Emily herself in the vehicle! He kissed his hand to her, and the "May I never go to heaven, Mr. Sloth, if I know | lady blushed and turned away her head. “How no more about her," "I am sure she called here last night. Wellwell-the baggage!-let me catch her! that's all," -and Sloth, Mims, and their quiet, nameless friend, having called a coach, quitted the open mansion of Mrs. Cagely. Mr. Trumps-Mr. Trumps," cried Mrs. Cagely, shaking our hero, fallen asleep, on the couch. kind-how tender-how delightful her attention, to come herself, that she might hear without the least delay, the result of the proceedings!" Sir Jeremy, without noticing Trumps, stalked into the office. Titus cast a burning glance at Emily, and followed, hoping speedily to despatch the business, and then to return and carry off Miss Sloth. As Trumps proceeded down the passage, he caught the "Sweet Emily," muttered Titus, in his heavy eye of the complaining watchman in the cause. slumber. 'That's him!” said Starlight, pointing out the delin"Curse Emily!" exclaimed the meek Mrs. Cagely.quent Titus to a companion-" that's him—but we'll "Mr. Trumps-I wish Mrs. Anodyne had been far-teach him how to murder watchmen, for all his fine ther! I have enough to do with my own affairs-coat." Mr. Trumps, I say" Trumps entered the office as the clerk called out "Never mind your father," sighed the dreaming the name of "Abraham Swag." The owner of that Titus. name was immediately put to the bar. Trumps im"Mr. Trump," screamed Mrs. Cagely, in a mediately saw in the accused, his dungeon-friend high, prolonged note. Titus shook himself-stretched Edgar St. Evremond," the wronged heir, who had his legs-opened his eyes-and serenely asked-pressed both his hands, with such genuine gratitude "What's the matter?" for service proffered. "I see it," said Titus to him "Matter! it's nearly ten o'clock, and you must go self. "I see it-how delicate of him to hide his real before the justice," replied the provident bail. name!" 'I didn't leave a diamond ring upon the table, The case was immediately gone into. General |