poverty, ever envying the wealth of others.
You are better without me, Walter, you
are, indeed! Our ways of life will be very
different, and we shall never come across
each other in any probability. If we should,
I hope we shall meet as friends. I am sure
it will not be very long before you recognise
the wisdom of the course I am now taking,
and are grateful to me for having taken it.
You are full of talent, which you will now
doubtless turn to good account, and of
worthy aspirations which you will find
some one to sympathise with, and share
the upward career which I am sure is
before you. I thought I could have done
as much at one time, but I know now that
I could not, and I should be only acting
basely and wickedly towards you, though
you will not think it more basely and
wickedly than I am now acting with you,
if I had gone on pretending that I could,
and had burdened you for life with a soured
and discontented woman. I have no more
to say. "MARIAN."

"You do not repent of what you said to
me this morning, Marian?" said Mr. Creswell,
in a whisper, as he took her into
dinner.

"On the contrary," she replied in the
same tone, "I am too happy to have been
able to gratify you by saying it."

"What has happened with Miss A.?"
whispered Gertrude to Maud, at the same
time; " I don't like the look in her eyes!"

And certainly they did look triumphant,
almost insolently so, when their glances fell
on the girls.

      WILLS AND WILL MAKING.

WE continue our list of Will stories,
commenced last week, with an eccentric justice
in Norfolk, who died at the age of ninety, and
required to be interred in his wedding shirt,
his full suit and bag-wig, his silver buckles in
his shoes, his cane in his hand, and black
ribbons in his sleeve bands. Exactly a hundred
years ago a widow Pratt died in George-street,
Hanover-square, and left injunctions that her
body was to be burned to ashes. Some
testators, like Mr. Morgan, of Wales, have
left thirty-one calves'-heads to the poor, to be
given on his birthday; some have left money,
to be given out annually on their own
tombstones.

A Mr. Farstone, of Alton, having no relations,
left his seven thousand pounds to the
first man of his name who should wed a woman
of the same name, and the money was to be
paid down on the day of the marriage. Eccentric
testators, however, are not likely to know
that the courts look very sharply after their
freaks, and are inclined if possible to revise
such dispositions.

Readers of Boswell will recall that laborious
lord of session (Lord Hailes), to whom Johnson
used to send messages of turgid encomium.
On his death, when he left an only
daughter, no will could be found. This
seemed a sad hardship, and though diligent
search was made, it was unsuccessful.
Miss Dalrymple was preparing to leave the
house, and the heir-at-law about entering on
the property which had come to him so
unexpectedly, when some servants were sent over
to another house of the late judge's in
New-street, to put it in order. As they were
closing the window-shutters, a paper dropped
out from one of the panels, which proved to be
the missing will. The surprise of this denouement,
acting in two different directions, was
excessive. But indeed the history of lost and
found wills is one of the most exciting pages of
romance. There are not a few families in the
kingdom who owe success in some will litigation
to the discovery by a dream of a missing
paper, and instances have been so repeated,
that, however the matter is to be explained, it
is impossible to doubt their truth. Here is a
well-authenticated one, told by the chief actor
himself, a famous Liverpool preacher, to a
friend of the writer's.

When the Liverpool preacher was a very
obscure curate, he was taking a journey on
horseback in very severe weather. He lost his
way, and wandered about drenched, cold, and
scarcely knowing what to do. Night came
on, and he resolved to entrust the matter
to his horse — dropping the reins on his
neck. The horse soon brought him to a sort
of lodge-gate, where he asked his way, and
where he was invited to ride up to the
great house, where he might perhaps find
shelter. He did so, and was received in the
kitchen with menial hospitality, and allowed
to dry himself. During the evening, the
butler mentioned to his master that there
was a parson below, in a bad way indeed, and
the master of the house politely sent down and
asked him up. Further, he insisted on his
staying to dinner and for the night. The clergyman
consented, and went to bed in the
conventional long chamber, and under the friendly
shelter of the conventional four-poster; which,
also true to the convention, he could not
help likening to a catafalque. There he slept
profoundly, while his weary and buffeted
horse enjoyed his repose in a comfortable
stable.

During the night the parson dreamed—
dreamed that he was going over the house. He
went up a stair with an oaken balustrade, and
found himself entering an old picture-gallery,
with portraits ranged down both sides. As he
looked, one of them seemed to come out from
the wall, and a paper dropped down, which, with
the indistinctness of all dreams, seemed to leave
the impression on him that it was of vast
importance. This, he knew, without getting any