ntentions, provided Miss Euston will listen to
reason. I am grieved to see you in a place so unsuited to your former
station as this wretched apartment."

"And yet," said Edith, "I have passed some pleasant hours in this
room, comfortless as it looks. So long as I had the hope of being able
to provide for our wants by my own exertions, I found contentment in
its humble shelter."

"Your happiness must then be truly independent of outward
circumstances," replied Barclay, with a touch of his old sarcasm. "I
supposed, from the tenor of your mother's petition, that you had begun
to repent of your high-toned language to me in our last interview, and
would now accede to terms you once spurned, as the price of my
assistance to you and yours."

Edith curbed her high spirit, and calmly replied, "You misunderstood
my mother's words. As the mother of the late heir, she justly
considers herself entitled to a pittance from your estate, and she
claimed from your humanity, what she was hopeless of obtaining from
your sense of justice. For myself, I hoped for nothing from either,
but I acquiesced in her application. I am sorry that you have founded
on it expectations which must prove fallacious."

"Then, madam, I need remain no longer," said Barclay, addressing Mrs.
Euston. "Your daughter remembers our interview previous to, and after,
the death of her brother; the only terms on which I would assist you
were then explicitly expressed."

Mrs. Euston caught his hand, and bowed her venerable head upon it.

"Have mercy, Robert, upon my gray hairs--my daughter; look at her--she
is dying by inches--she is stifling in this wretched spot. The money
that was my son's should surely buy a shelter for us. Leave us not
helpless, hopeless. My God! my God! give me eloquence to plead for my
child!" and she threw herself upon the floor, and raised her clasped
hands to heaven.

"Madam," said Barclay, "it only rests with your daughter to have mercy
upon you and herself. Where, I ask you, is her filial piety, when she
beholds you suffer thus, and relents not toward one who offers her a
love that has survived coldness, contempt, contumely."

Edith approached her mother, and assisted her to rise.

"My dearest mother, calm yourself. Humble not yourself thus before our
oppressor. God is just--is merciful. He will not forget the widow and
the orphan in their extremity. Leave us, Mr. Barclay; had my wishes
alone been consulted, you never would have be