Thus I often saw Francis Levison: but he was visible to scarcely any other visitor, being at East Lynne en cachette. He intimated that he was afraid of encountering creditors: I now begin to doubt whether that was not a false plea: and I remember Mr. Carlyle said, at the time, that he had no creditors in or near West Lynne."

"Then, what was his motive for shunning society; for never going out?" interrupted Lady Isabel. Too well she remembered that bygone time: Francis Levison had told her that the fear of his creditors kept him up so closely; though he had once said to her they were not in the immediate neighbourhood of East Lynne.

"He had a worse fear upon him than that of creditors," returned Mrs. Carlyle. "Singular to say, during this visit of Captain Thorn to the Herberts, we received an intimation from my brother that he was once more about to venture for a few hours to West Lynne. I brought the news to Mr. Carlyle; I had to see him and consult with him more frequently than ever: mamma was painfully restless and anxious, and Mr. Carlyle as eager as we were for the establishment of Richard's innocence, for Miss Carlyle and papa are related, consequently the disgrace may be said to reflect on the Carlyle name."

Back went Lady Isabel's memory and her bitter repentance. She remembered how jealously she had attributed these meetings between Mr. Carlyle and Barbara to another source. Oh, why had she suffered her mind to be so falsely and fatally perverted?

"Richard came. It was hastily arranged that he should go privately to Mr. Carlyle's office, after the clerks had left for the night, be concealed there, and have an opportunity given him of seeing Captain Thorn. There was no difficulty, for Mr. Carlyle was transacting some matter of business for the captain, and appointed him to be at the office at eight o'clock. A memorable night, that, to Mr. Carlyle, for it was the one of his wife's elopement."

Lady Isabel looked up with a start.

"It was, indeed. She, Lady Isabel, and Mr. Carlyle, were engaged to a dinner party: and Mr. Carlyle had to give it up, otherwise he could not have served Richard. He is always considerate and kind, thinking of others' welfare; never of his own gratification. Oh, it was an anxious night! Papa was out. I waited at home with mamma, doing what I could to soothe her restless suspense: for there was hazard to Richard in his night walk through West Lynne to keep the appointment: and, when it was over, he was to come home for a short interview with mamma, who had not seen him for several years."

Barbara stopped, lost in thought. Not a word spoke Madame Vine. She still wondered what this affair, touching Richard Hare and Captain Thorn, could have to do with Francis Levison.

"I watched from the window, and saw them come in at the garden gate, Mr. Carlyle and Richard-between nine and ten o'clock I think it must have been then. The first words they said to me were, that it was not the Captain Thorn spoken of by Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment, which was wicked enough of me, but I had been so sure he was the man; and, to hear he was not, seemed to throw us further back than ever. Mr. Carlyle, on the contrary, was glad, for he had taken a liking for Captain Thorn. Well, Richard went in to mamma, and Mr.

Carlyle was so kind as to accede to her request that he would remain and pace the garden with me. We were so afraid of papa's coming home: he was bitter against Richard, and would inevitably have delivered him up at once to justice. Had he come in, Mr. Carlyle was to keep him in the garden by the gate, whilst I ran in to give notice and conceal Richard in the hall. Richard lingered; papa did not come; and I cannot tell how long we paced there; but I had my shawl on, and it was a lovely moonlight night.'

That unhappy listener clasped her hands to pain. The matter-of-fact tone, the unconscious mention of common-place trifles, proved that they had not been pacing about in disloyalty to her, or for their own gratification. Why had she not trusted her noble husband? why had she listened to that false man, as he pointed them out to her, walking there in the moonlight? why had she given vent, in the chariot, to that burst of passionate tears, of angry reproach? why, oh why had she hastened to be revenged? But for seeing them together, she might not have done as she did.

"Richard came forth at last, and departed; to be again an exile. Mr. Carlyle also departed; and I remained at the gate, watching for papa. By-and-by Mr. Carlyle came back again: he had got nearly home when he remembered that he had left a parchment at our house. It seemed to

be nothing but coming back, for, just after he had gone a second time, Richard returned in a state of excitement, stating that he had met Thorn -Thorn the murderer, I mean, in Bean-lane. For a moment I doubted him, but not for long, and we ran after Mr. Carlyle. Richard described Thorn's appearance; his evening dress, his white hands and his diamond ring; more particularly he described a peculiar motion of his hand as he threw back his hair. In that moment it flashed across me that Thorn must be Captain Levison; the description was exact. Many and many a time since, have I wondered that the thought did not strike Mr. Carlyle."

Lady Isabel sat with her mouth open, as if she could not take in the sense of the words: and when it did become clear to her, she utterly rejected it.

"Francis Levison a murderer! Oh no. Bad man as he is, he is not that."

"Wait," said Mrs. Carlyle. "I did not speak of this doubt―nay, this conviction-which had come to me: how could I mention to Mr. Car

lyle the name of the man who did him that foul wrong ?-and Richard has remained in exile, with the ban of guilt upon him. To-day, as my carriage passed through West Lynne, Francis Levison was haranguing the people. I saw that very same action-the throwing back of the hair with his white hand: I saw the self-same diamond ring; and my conviction, that he was the man, became more firmly seated than ever." "It is impossible," murmured Lady Isabel.

"Wait, I say," said Barbara. "When Mr. Carlyle came home to dinner, I, for the first time, mentioned this to him. It was no newsthe fact was not. This afternoon, during that same harangue, Francis Levison was recognised by two witnesses to be the man Thorn-the man who went after Afy Hallijohn. It is horrible."

Lady Isabel sat, and looked at Mrs. Carlyle. Not yet did she believe it.

"Yes, it does appear to me as being perfectly horrible," continued Mrs. Carlyle. "He murdered Hallijohn: he, that bad man; and my poor brother has suffered the odium. When Richard met him that night in Bean-lane, he was sneaking to West Lynne in search of the chaise that afterwards bore away him and his companion. Papa saw them drive away. Papa stayed out late; and, in returning home, a chaise and four tore past, just as he was coming in at the gate. If that miserable Lady Isabel had but known with whom she was flying! A murderer! in addition to his other achievements! It is a mercy for her that she is no longer alive. What would her feelings be?"

What were they, then, as she sat there?

--

A murderer! and she had In spite of her caution, of her strife for self-command, she turned of a deadly whiteness, and a low sharp cry of horror and despair burst from her lips.

Mrs. Carlyle was astonished. Why should her communication have produced this effect upon Madame Vine? A renewed suspicion, that she knew more of Francis Levison than she would acknowledge, stole over her.

"Madame Vine, what is he to you?" she asked, bending forward.

Madame Vine, doing fierce battle with herself, recovered her outward equanimity. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Carlyle," she shivered; "I am apt to picture things too vividly. It is, as you say, so very horrible." "Is he nothing to you? Don't you know him ?"

"He is nothing to me; less than nothing. As to knowing him-I saw him yesterday when they put him into the pond. A man like that! I should shudder to meet him.”

"Ay, indeed," said Barbara, reassured. "You will understand, Madame Vine, that this history has been given you in confidence. I look upon you as one of ourselves."

There was no answer. Madame Vine sat on, with her white face. She and it wore altogether a ghastly look.

"Well

"It tells like a fable out of a romance," resumed Mrs. Carlyle. for him if the romance be not ended with the gibbet. Fancy what it would be for him, Sir Francis Levison, to be hung for murder!" "Barbara, my dearest!"

The voice was Mr. Carlyle's, and she flew off on the wings of love. It appeared that the gentlemen had not yet departed, and now thought they would take coffee first.

Flew off to her idolised husband, leaving her, who had once been the idolised, to her loneliness. She sank down on the sofa; she threw her arms up in her heart-sickness; she thought she would faint; she prayed to die. It was horrible, as Barbara had called it. For that man, with the red stain upon his hand and soul, she had flung away Archibald Carlyle.

If ever retribution came home to woman, it came home in that hour to Lady Isabel.

STEREOSCOPIC GLIMPSES.

BY W. CHARLES Kent.

XVI.-BUTLER AT EARLSCROOMB.

A FROSTED lattice-lozenge paned,
With herald griffins demon stained,
As though each imp that wears a horn,
All grizzly foals from nightmares born,
Here blent their loathly shapes to be
Earth's grimliest types of devilry!
Without, in 's bed, the wintry plain
Tucked up in snowy counterpane;
While eaves o'erhead their dribbling spout
Thrust forth like some obtrusive snout,
That sniffs, and drips, and chills as well,
Till pendent hangs its icicle.
Within- -a room of laden shelves,
Whence student labour digs and delves
The pignut thoughts, by fibrous roots
Traced from the merest casual shoots :
The dustiest, littered reading-closet,
Where oft some bookworm may deposit
Brain-maggots bred from germs at college,
For margins of the leaves of knowledge.
A daub on makeshift easel placed,
With many an artless smudge defaced
Of carmine, bistre, lake, and ochre,
Laid on as if by scrape of poker.

Yon artist there, with thumb-strung palette,
Lacks clearly all that-what d'ye call it ?-
Th' afflatus, ostrum, whence hath shone
Artistic inspiration.

A spinnet few would care to tackle,
Be'ng both in form and wear ramshackle;
A spinnet clearly 'n evil case,

With sorely scratched and battered face:
Yellow, ink-splotched, brok'n its keys,

As though posthumous tusk disease

Grinned forth, with aspect scarce hilarious,

From mouth crammed full of teeth half carious.

Yon tyro both in sound and paint

There perched on joint-stool old and quaint

Betwixt the daub-encumbered easel

And th' instrument voiced like a weasel,
With brush yet held in dexter fist,
And palette on the other wrist,
Reveals, o'er russet coat of serge,
A face-not frontispiece of dirge,
But rather, though in raiment alien-
The vignette of some bacchanalian.
Queer twinkling eyes that doze like cat,
Half closed with laughter, half with fat;
A ruddy nose that tends to bottle,
As though its owner loved to throttle-

Not throats of those who live to bicker,
But-gurgling flasks of mellow liquor.
Large, pendulous, unctuous lips below,
The very sluice where wine should flow!
Ah me! yet all those jovial looks
Are made for Starving, more than Cooks:
His visage, not his garb, the mask;
Scarce water in his life's thin flask.
Poor clerk of country justice, he,
From bookish rules yet barely free,
Essays in various arts his skill
Through toil the Demon Care to kill.
Go fling thy bungling pencil by,
Nor more those jangling discords ply
That lurk in yonder jarring chords—
Go try thy skill in chinking words,
Odd satire ringing out with chime,
In all thy wild burlesque of rhyme.
Go mount on sorry jade, less jaunty
Than Quixote's starveling Rosinante,
With ign'rance than the Don's more crass
Thy hunchback hero Hudibras.

Grim Ralpho ambling near his haunch,
Thy Knight's Squire Sancho minus paunch!
Sing on, as frolic humour jumps,

O' th' rabble burning of the rumps;

Or, winning laughs from royal Charley,

Sing thou alternate fight and parley;

Chant who shall spare and who shall thwack 'em,

Those hides of Crowdero and Whackum;

Retail each vulgar gibe that mocks

Thy heroes tethered in the stocks;

Each insult put thy Knight upon

Bestrid by ragged Amazon;

Write till with pencilled, twittering numbers

Thou'lt tickle Dulness from its slumbers;

Till sourest critics smile to see

Thy book the world's epitome;
Till, listening to each thunderous blow
Thy satire deals, all men shall know
Thy verse-of texture coarse and tough,
And breathed in voice so harsh and rough,
It sounds as though one heard a frog rail-
By sterling wit 's redeemed from doggrel.
Thus brim-whate'er thyself befal-
Mirth's goblet, thou her Seneschal !
Replenishing her feast, the while
Thou gain'st a frown for every smile;
Till Death thy rugged pathway closes
Benignly in a Lane of Roses.*

Butler is said to have expired in abject poverty in Rose-lane, Covent-garden.