ay Fortune for the many ill turns he had received from
her in his youth, by enjoying, to their full extent, the good things
that she had latterly showered upon him.

He had been a kind manageable husband to a woman whom he had married
more for convenience than affection; and was a fatally indulgent father
to the only son, the sole survivor of a large family that he had
consigned to the tomb during the engaging period of infancy. Godfrey, a
beautiful little boy of two years old, was his youngest and his best
beloved, on whom he lavished the concentrated affections of his warm and
generous heart.

Since his marriage with the rich and beautiful Miss Maitland, he had
scarcely given Elinor Wildegrave a second thought. He had loved her
passionately, as the portionless orphan of the unfortunate Captain
Wildegrave; but he could not regard with affection or esteem the wife of
the rich Mark Hurdlestone--the man from whom he had received so many
injuries. How she could have condescended to share his splendid misery,
was a question which filled his mind with too many painful and
disgusting images to answer. When he received his brother's hasty
message, entreating him to come and make up their old quarrel before he
died, he obeyed the extraordinary summons with his usual kindness of
heart, without reflecting on the pain that such a meeting might
occasion, when he beheld again the object of his early affections as the
wife of his unnatural brother.

When he crossed the well-known threshold, and his shadow once more
darkened his father's hall, those feelings which had been deadened by
his long intercourse with the world resumed their old sway, and he
paused, and looked around the dilipidated mansion with eyes dimmed with
regretful tears.

"And it was to become the mistress of such a home as this, that Elinor
Wildegrave--my beautiful Elinor--sold herself to such a man as Mark
Hurdlestone, and forgot her love--her plighted troth to me!"

So thought Algernon Hurdlestone, as he followed the parish girl up the
broad uncarpeted oak stairs to his brother's apartment, shocked and
astonished at the indications of misery and decay which on every side
met his gaze. He had heard much of Mark's penurious habits, but he had
deemed the reports exaggerated or incorrect; he was now fully convinced
that they were but too true. Surprised that Mrs. Hurdlestone did not
appear to receive him, he inquired of Ruth, "if her mistress were at
home?"

"A