"Poor Caroline, poor Caroline!" he said,
in a low voice; then suddenly looking up, " I
have been a sad scamp, and a disgrace to my
family; but sooner or later the truth will be
known. She was my favourite sister. I was
the youngest child, and was spoiled. I entered
the army, went to India, took to gambling, took
to drink, and at last proceedings were taken
against me for forgery. I was wholly innocent,
but a brother-officer informed me privately that
there was no chance of my acquittal; so I
made my escape, he furnishing me with the
means. I went home under a feigned name,
and I saw my father, who would not receive me,
saying that every mail from India contained
shocking accounts of my depravity, which had
broken my sister's heart and his. I went to my
sister Caroline, saw her in private often, but
never could prevail upon her to mention my case
to her husband. He was too honourable a man,
she said, to advocate the cause of an outlaw, and
he would, she was sure, deliver his own brother
up to what he believed to be merited punishment.
She sold her own private jewellery to
enable me to leave the kingdom, and we parted
with great tenderness, for she did not believe
me guilty. But on that dismal evening she
told me she felt a presentiment of evil, and she
was nearly right, for, on my crossing a
footbridge that led from the garden, part of the
planking gave way, and I was plunged into a
perfect torrent. Although a good swimmer, I
must have perished but for one of the planks
that had fallen with me. I drifted away, clinging
to this, and was landed, much bruised, a mile
down the river. I reached London, and wrote
to her before I sailed, telling her of my escape.
I received a reply the day before sailing, which
much distressed me. ' James,' she wrote, ' you
have brought a great grief upon me. I think
and hope I am going to the grave.'"

But at that moment my travelling companion
raised his head, looked wildly at us, and cried in
a solemn voice:

"Most merciful Heaven! O, most merciful
Heaven!"

He strove to rise from the table, and could
not, but fell back helpless on the rude couch.

"Apoplexy!" I exclaimed; " undo his neck-
cloth."

"No," he faintly murmured; " look at this,
James Mowbray."

With trembling hands he pulled out a miniature
from his bosom, and held it out to our host.

"My sister Carry!" cried the latter.

"It is the picture of my wife, James
Mowbray. I am Reginald Aspern."

He and the seaman had been picked up by a
whaler, and forwarded by the first passing vessel.
I did not diminish the happiness of our host by
informing him that the brother-officer in question
had met with an accident in " pig-sticking,"
and had before his death confessed that he had
committed the forgeries attributed to Mowbray.
This news had just arrived in Europe as I was
leaving.

I commenced my story, " I am sitting alone
in a very retired place," &c., but since the above
incidents occurred, I have visited " home," as
we properly call it, and the very happiest days
I ever spent in my life were spent at Bellgrove
House, in the County Clare. And the very
greatest rompings I ever had, were with three
young chubby rogues and one little girl, the
three former bearing respectively the names of
Reginald, James, and that of your humble
servant; the latter that of Carry.

"I HAVE DONE MY DUTY."

WELL ! and a very good thing to have done,
my dear madam; and you may be reasonably
proud of your feat, and glad that you have so
much scored to the good in your Great Account.
Reasonably proud, I say; not unreasonably; not
thinking that you have built the whole pyramid
of human virtue from base to apex, and with all
the secret chambers and treasure-stores
complete, and not believing that you have sucked
the orange of morality clean and dry—keeping
only the gold-coloured skin as a tent and trophy.

Duty is a grand thing to do, and the duty-
doer is an indispensable person in his generation;
and yet more than mere duty is needed
for the perfectioning of our lives; that is, if we
would add the richness of grace to the hard
square base of fact. All square bases need
ornament. We want painters and sculptors as
well as paviors and house-builders; and though
stout blue serge is an admirable institution, and
keeps one well clad against the winter cold, yet
do you not think that a wardrobe of stout blue
serge only, coarse and serviceable, would be a
little heavy and uninteresting? For my part,
being a frivolously minded person, I own to a
weakness for laces and ribbons, and a rich black
velvet now and then, and a dash of shining silk,
or a cloud of airy muslin, with trifles of chains
and lockets and flying ends and dangling
streamers and pretty silly charms, worthless for
clothing but good for beauty and that so much
of coquetry as shows the desire of pleasing;
without which we are less lovely than the
savages. I own that a life of duty only, without
the sweet caresses and loving words and
other tender resting-places built up by Love on
the dusty road of human travel, is to me a life
without delight, a day without sunshine, an
orchard without singing-birds, a dress of coarse
blue serge only, good against the hard
inclemency of winter, but unpleasant in the wear
and unlovely to the wearer.

No one doubts, still less denies, the importance
of doing one's duty. But there is duty
and duty; and one has not built the whole of
the pyramid, when one has put three bricks in a
row, with a broken flower-pot on the top. There
is a duty, for instance, which is like a dry
white withered bit of junk whereby no one
can live fitly or generously; I mean that
manifestation of duty which is done, not so grudgingly
as ostentatiously—not so complainingly as
coldly—not so slackly as disagreeably; this is