kindness of his friend, but he was too weak and miserable to speak. He returned, however, the embrace, and then once more he was left alone to the company of his own sad thoughts.

It is indeed grievous to reflect upon a blasted life.

THE letter in which Dr. Massenger acquainted A Mr. Manwaring with his son's delinquency was a very matter-of-fact document, and stated the points which had come to his knowledge with minute and relentless exactness. It plainly expressed the writer's deliberate conviction that Wilfred was a thief, and hinted at his regret that he had not been more particular before he had admitted him to the companionship of gentlemen of noble birth.

The reception of this letter was, as may be supposed, a great blow to great blow to the Squire. But it filled him with rage rather than with grief; and after two or three hours' consideration, he deter

mined on the immediate and condign punishment of the offender who had brought disgrace upon the Family. A son of his not a fit companion for anyone! Here was the sting. A member of the ancient Family of Manwaring not fit to associate with the son of a parvenu like Lord Guttleborough ! Here was the disgrace! In his selfconceit, so convinced was he that no one would venture to attempt to deceive him, that it never even entered into his head to weigh the evidence of the alleged crime; nor in all that he did, and in all that he determined to do, did the father once think of the moral wickedness of the act which he believed his own son to have committed. All he thought of, and all he thought of punishing him for, was, not the sin committed against God and man, but the offence committed against the House of Manwaring. Pride of ancestry, which, kept within due bounds and rightly regulated, might to some be an incentive to good and to noble action-Noblesse obligè—became, in the case of the Squire of Holmcastle, the parent of evil in its effects, as well as a positive crime in itself. The desire of retribution made the old man blind. In his rage and wounded pride, he forgot what he had once forgotten before, that the acres of

his much-loved Holmcastle were entailed upon the son he was about to cast out like a dog upon the world, and that if his son Lionel should die without issue, the castaway, should he survive, would come to reign in his own stead at the Manor.

The

Poor Evelyn learned from her father the outline of the story of her beloved brother's crime and disgrace, and finding her own urgent entreaties of no avail, she hastily despatched a letter to the Rectory, to entreat Mr. Elthorne to visit her father, and try to dissuade him from any rash course. Rector, in great distress of mind-for he loved and valued the boy-came at once, but he altogether failed to dissuade the Squire from the course on which he had already determined. Mr. Manwaring was in many respects a weak man, but, like most weak men, he was as obstinate as a mule. If it was long before he could come to any definite decision at all, yet, when he had once formed it, he deemed that it was as irreversible as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and it was next to impossible to turn him from it. So it proved on the present occasion. Mr. Elthorne found the Squire as hard as adamant. As the old and trusted friend of the family, and as the Parish Priest, he tried to shake

his determination, but he tried in vain. In vain he pointed out the injustice of precipitation. In vain he prayed the Squire to adopt mild measures towards his son, who, after all, might not be guilty, and who, even if guilty, might, by kindness and love, be won back to repentance and virtue. In vain he set before the Squire the duty of keeping a place in the fold for the strayed sheep; a seat by the old familiar home-hearth for the returning prodigal, if such he were. In vain he pointed out that that "Gospel within a Gospel," the Parable of the Prodigal Son, had a double application, and held up to view, for the imitation of his chief parishioner, the Majestic Figure of the Father running forward with the outstretched arms of Divine Mercy to embrace him who, lost in the mazes of sin, had resolved to arise and return to his home. In vain, in vain; for that tender parable had, for that wretched father, been spoken to no purpose! At length Mr. Elthorne was stirred to strong indignation, and sternly rebuked the obstinate old man. "I warn you," he said, as he took his leave, "that you are about to commit a sin against God and against your own son. are resolved to sacrifice the living to the dead. Who are you, that you dare to withhold forgiveness

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