that it was the peacefullest man's face ever
beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime
and prophetic.

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the
same axe—a woman—had asked at the foot of
the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed
to write down the thoughts that were inspiring
her. If he had given any utterance to his, and
they were prophetic, they would have been
these:

"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The
Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of
the new oppressors who have risen on the
destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive
instrument, before it shall cease out of its
present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant
people rising from this abyss, and, in their
struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and
defeats, through long long years to come, I
see the evil of this time and of the previous
time of which this is the natural birth,
gradually making expiation for itself and wearing
out.

"I see the lives for which I lay down my life,
peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that
England which I shall see no more. I see Her
with a child upon her bosom, who bears my
name. I see her father, aged and bent, but
otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his
healing office, and at peace. I see the good
old man, so long their friend, in ten years'
time enriching them with all he has, and passing
tranquilly to his reward.

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts,
and in the hearts of their descendants, generations
hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping
for me on the anniversary of this day. I see
her and her husband, their course done, lying
side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know
that each was not more honoured and held
sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the
souls of both.

"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and
who bore my name, a man, winning his way up
in that path of life which once was mine. I see
him winning it so well, that my name is made
illustrious there by the light of his. I see the
blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him,
foremost of just judges and honoured men,
bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead
that I know and golden hair, to this place—
then fair to look upon, with not a trace of
this day's disfigurement—and I hear him tell
the child my story, with a tender and a faltering
voice.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I
have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I
go to, than I have ever known."

THE END.

WE purpose always reserving the first place
in these pages for a continuous original work of
fiction, occupying about the same amount of
time in its serial publication, as that which is
just completed. The second story of our series
we now beg to introduce to the attention of our
readers. It will pass, next week, into the station
hitherto occupied by A Tale of Two Cities.
And it is our hope and aim, while we work hard
at every other department of our journal, to
produce, in this one, some sustained works of
imagination that may become a part of English
Literature.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
PREAMBLE.

THIS is the story of what a Woman's patience
can endure, and of what a Man's resolution can
achieve.

If the machinery of the Law could be depended
on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to
conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate
assistance only from the lubricating influences of
oil of gold, the events which fill these pages
might have claimed their share of the public
attention in a Court of Justice.

But the Law is still, in certain inevitable
cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse;
and the story is left to be told, for the first time,
in this place. As the Judge might once have
heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No
circumstance of importance, from the beginning
to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on
hearsay evidence. When the writer of these
introductory lines (Walter Hartright, by name)
happens to be more closely connected than
others with the incidents to be recorded, he
will describe them in his own person. When
his experience fails, he will retire from the
position of narrator; and his task will be
continued, from the point at which he has left it off,
by other persons who can speak to the
circumstances under notice from their own knowledge,
just as clearly and positively as he has spoken
before them.

Thus, the story here presented will be told
by more than one pen, as the story of an offence
against the laws is told in Court by more than
one witness— with the same object, in both
cases, to present the truth always in its most
direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace
the course of one complete series of events,
by making the persons who have been most
closely connected with them, at each successive
stage, relate their own experience, word for
word.

Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing,
aged twenty-eight years, be heard first.

THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT, OF
CLEMENT'S INN, LONDON.
I.

IT was the last day of July. The long hot
summer was drawing to a close; and we, the
weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were
beginning to think of the cloud-shadows on