"I am not surprised," said Alexander. "But did he come at what he wanted? for that is now perhaps the main point."

"Oh, he did, Mr. Alexander, to his sorrow; for it pleased the Almighty to make his guilt the instrument of his punishment. It happened this way :-There was a mass or a wall of rubbish, as it were the wall of this room, or rather the side of a new railway cutting; there were rafters and fragments of furniture, that belonged no doubt to the old manse, projecting here and there through the stones and gravel-some say a corner of the box itself was visible, and that the wretched man was just about to snatch it—at all events, he was standing close under the mass, when it suddenly detached itself and fell, crushing him so fearfully that life was extinct before he was extricated. The box was found right upon his chest, one corner driven into it as with a sledge. His head was the only part of his body that escaped mutilation."

"To enable me to recognise his features," said Alexander, "as those of a notorious malefactor, who has at length in this signal manner expiated a life of crime and profligacy."

The minister then took Alexander to the syndic, in whose custody the box was, as well as the papers and other things found on the person of the deceased. The box was a small oblong one of iron, tinned. It was half eaten with rust, the lock was smashed, and it was another miracle that its contents, only papers, had escaped destruction. The papers were taken out and read in the presence of the three gentlemen.

The nature and effect of them, both with relation to Mr. Arnaud and Mrs. Rowley, were precisely what the reader has been led to anticipate. They filled Alexander with strong and conflicting emotions.

Among the articles found were a pair of false whiskers and one or two phials with dyes and washes, probably some of the miscellaneous assortment which we have already seen in the chambers of those more than double-dyed villains, the Messrs. Leonard.

Among the papers were several which removed all doubt on the question of identity, and cleared up other dark matters besides. One was the following letter, which the deceased had received only the day before his death, or rather, his execution :—

"DEAR ARCHIE,—

"If you want more cash, you must have it; but what you had from good Mrs. U. ought to pay the labour of those beggarly Waldenses for a twelvemonth. But get the case, whatever it costs. Don't come back without it; or, by all the primroses of Primrose Hill, I'll cut your acquaintance. It is well worth a thousand pounds to us, and we shall get it either from one party or the other as sure

as God's in Gloucester. The widow is no fool, whatever the missionary may be. However, you only get the case and the papers, and leave it to me to bring them to market. Mrs. U. has absconded, but her husband is always a sure mark.

"Yours, according to your behaviour,

"OLD N."

The syndic, or magistrate, of the village, at first, demurred to placing the casket and other things in Alexander's hands; but as soon as he stated who he was, and how intimately he was connected with all the parties, to say nothing of his personal claims to more than mere respect, no objection was made to his taking everything with him. As to the documents, he promised to have them copied at Turin, and to deposit either the copies or the originals with the proper authorities there.

He then bade a kind adieu to the pastor and his less simple wife, and left the village with a still more thoughtful face than he entered it, and a heavier weight on his spirits. More than once, thinking of Arnaud, he exclaimed to himself on his long walk, "Noble-minded fellow he must have known that these papers existed. Now I understand the distraction which I took to be love."

"The box! the box!" exclaimed Letitia, as Alexander entered with it in his hand.

"Gold or jewels ?" cried Mrs. Naworth.

"I see by your countenance," said Woodville, " that the contents, whatever they may be, are not of a pleasing nature; but who is Mr. Prince? Let us know that first, to put Miss Cateran out of pain."

Alexander was in no hurry to answer; he placed the crushed and rust-eaten box on the table, drew a chair, and sat down, while the rest gathered round him, like an eager circle to hear a ghost-story. "Miss Cateran was right," he said at length, regarding Woodville gravely.

It was like a thunder-stroke to the artist.

"God bless me," he cried, "you don't mean to say

"Not your friend, Woodville, but his brother--one of the Moffats. No doubt about it.”

Woodville was speechless.

"I hope he is in custody," said Letitia.

"An officer has him in his grasp,” replied Alexander, “who never yet let innocent or guilty out of his hands-he is no more."

As soon as he had told the story, he said, after a pause,"Much as you have been surprised and pained by what I have told you, what I have still to say, with the papers in this box to vouch for it, will affect you more. I mean you, Miss Cateran, and my friend, Woodville, who are both Mrs. Rowley's friends."

Letitia turned pale as death.

"Mrs. Rowley!" cried Woodville, "how can they affect her in any way ?"

"In two ways, and seriously; she has found a brother and lost an estate. Arnaud is her brother, the proofs are here."

Miss Cateran burst into tears.

"To think," she exclaimed, sobbing, "that I have been instrumental a second time in ruining her."

"Not at all," said Alexander kindly; "on the contrary, your sagacity and that of the pastor's wife have been of the greatest service, by preventing those documents from falling into dishonest hands. The discovery was made by Mrs. Rowley's enemies, not her friends; it was made by Mrs. Upjohn, or with her money. I have documents here to prove that, too."

"I only wish," cried Woodville, knuckling the table in his customary fashion, "the caitiff's neck had been broken before he grubbed up such a questionable treasure."

"In remembering what Mrs. Rowley loses," said Alexander, "those who know her as well as we do ought not to forget what she gains."

"Oh, Mr. Alexander," said Letitia, trying to dry her eyes, "that is poor comfort for me; she could have done very well without a brother, who is only discovered to reduce her to beggary." And she burst again into a passion of tears, which even Woodville found it difficult to restrain.

"I suppose it will kill her," said Mrs. Naworth.

"You don't know the lady you speak of," said the artist sharply. "I know," rejoined the widow, "if I was in her place, I would rather have the estate without the brother, than the brother at the cost of the estate."

"That's because you are Mrs. Naworth, not Mrs. Rowley," retorted Woodville.

It was just, but Alexander would not have made such a savage speech to a lady on any provocation.

The ladies having withdrawn, Letitia to dry her eyes, and her friend to recover from the stroke she had just got, the artist said, with strong feeling,

"It is I who ought to reproach myself with having helped Mrs. Rowley's enemies, not that poor girl.'

"Pooh, you were simply deceived," said Alexander, “and you need not be overwhelmed with shame, for it was by an accomplished master of the art."

"I was duped in Paris by one brother, and at Bobbio by another. That poor girl detected the impostor the moment she laid her eyes on him."

"Miss Cateran," said Alexander," has not only a good head on her shoulders, but what is better, a good heart under her stomacher, and therefore I congratulate my old friend cordially on having won her affections."

"Now this is too bad," cried Woodville, " to anticipate what I had made up my mind to confide to you. What led you to suspect it ?" "As to that," replied Alexander, with a smile, "I had a shrewd suspicion of it from the day I saw you in Paris in your new robe-dechambre."

"And you," said the detected artist, to have a bit of revenge, "have you no lady in your eye with a good head and a good heart to match it? Do you know we-come, I mean Letitia and I-have often talked of Mrs. Rowley for you."

"Ah!" said Alexander, without betraying the slightest emotion, whether he experienced any or not, "what would my old mother say if I were to think of such a thing, especially after what has just occurred?"

"I am sorry to hear," said Woodville, with his measureless credulity, "that the old lady is so devoted to Mammon."

The very next moment Alexander had his finger on his friend's eye again. Moffat himself could not have done it better.

"We travel together, I hope," said the artist.

'My business abroad is not yet done," said Alexander, “I promised a friend of mine to engage an Italian architect to build a house for him, and I must go to Milan about it."

"A very good place," said Woodville.

"Perhaps you could help my friend to a design," said Alexander. "Where is he going to build?"

"On one of the lakes."

"A lake! oh, I have the very thing you want, a design I made for unfortunate Mrs. Rowley in the days of auld lang syne. I must have shown it to you at the time.”

"I forget," said the Jesuitical solicitor.

The artist found it after a short hunt in his portfolio, and made his friend a present of it, saying, as he put it up in an envelope,"Poor lady, she was on her high horse in those days; I suggested a cottage, but nothing would do but a villa, with a portico, and terraces, and all that sort of thing."

"She was always hopeful and aspiring," said Alexander, and at the same moment Miss Cateran returned just in time to receive his parting compliments before he left Turin with the box, having now only the easiest part of his business abroad to transact.

MARMION SAVAGE.

A SHORT LETTER TO SOME LADIES.

As the subject of the following letter is one of public interest, and of great importance, perhaps no apology is needed for its insertion here. It was meant to explain why the writer was unable to comply with the request which had been made, that he would join the supporters of the Ladies' Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

In spite of my admiration for the moral courage of the women who have come forward in this matter, I cannot help regarding the action which they are now taking as particularly deplorable. The first manifesto of the Association was eminently calculated to give a certain ground for the presumptuous notion, current among men of the world, that resort to declamatory à priori methods is the incurable vice of women when they come to political subjects; very fortunately this inference was speedily overthrown by the masterly letter of Miss Garrett. The second manifesto, which you have been good enough to forward, seems to me to be even less persuasive than the first. In this the Association ceases to care whether such Acts effectually stop the ravages of disease or not; even if they could be proved capable of doing this, "we should still," you say, "declare them worthy of our strongest reprobation." It is therefore quite superfluous for one who like myself is examining the reasons for joining or for withstanding your action, to consider the evidence for the efficiency of the Acts in checking disease. What then are the faults which the Association finds with these Acts? Not that they are inoperative, for it would reprobate them just as strongly if they were proved capable of stamping out the disease. What then? "That remoter causes of sin have been disregarded." On this principle you might have opposed the Act abolishing the Slave Trade, because there was no attempt to abolish slavery.

"Resistance to authority given under these Acts is punished." The English Parliament has certainly brought to a pitch of wonderful perfection the art of legislation which is no legislation; but a clause added to each of our laws that people might please themselves whether they obeyed it or not would still be a novelty.

"The tending of the sick is undertaken out of no compassion for them, but that their companions in vice shall be rendered safe from infection.” I question this imputation of motives, but even if it be as you say, so long as the sick are tended and cured, then for this at any rate we may fairly rejoice. And it will surely be something of a paradox for the Association, out of compassion for them, to suppress this tending of the sick.

"A standing army and a long term of military service have been