th the same
accursed capacity for strong, undying attachment. What a fair prospect of
fame had I! What honors were ready to crown me when that monster came and
blasted them all! Such do I fear will be Edgar's fate. But he must go
forth into the world; such was the wish of his parents. I can keep him
near me a few months longer by sending him to the Wimbledon seminary, ere
he must depart for some distant university or school of art. Then the
great world will have opened before him, and I shall see him no more."
The hermit suddenly ceased. Tears choked his utterance.

"Uncle!" said Edgar, starting quickly from his slumbers, "will you not
come and lie down?"

"Yes, my boy," answered the sorrowing man, approaching the rude couch.

The wintry winds wailed on with piteous, mournful voices; but the
_Hermit of the Cedars_ slept at last,

"A troubled, dreamy sleep."

CHAPTER XII.

"Lawyers and doctors at your service.
We are better off
Without them.
True, you are,--but still
You follow on their heels, and fawn,
And flatter in their faces. If you
Would leave your brawls and fights which
Call for physic, very soon you'd be
Beyond their greedy clutches."

OLD PLAY.

Reader, do you wonder where's the doctor whose saddle-bags may be
supposed to contain the divers specifics for the "ills" which the "flesh"
of Wimbledon is liable to become heir to? He doth exist, and, when
occasion calls, we'll trot him forth.

And do you say this same Wimbledon has never a lawyer within its
precincts,--and whoever heard of a village of several hundred inhabitants
without at least half-a-dozen of these learned disciples of Blackstone to
settle its wrongs and right its abuses?

Permit us to inform you, friend, that we consider lawyers dangerous
animals; and the less men and women have to do with them, the better!

Nevertheless, there is one o' the craft in Wimbledon; and, if you had not
been blind as a bat, you would have discovered, ere this, the sign of
"Peter Paul Pimble, Esq., Attorney-at-Law," hung over the door of a
small, black building in Mudget square. True, Mr. Pimble don't practise
his profession much, for a very good reason; nobody is in want of his
services; and that's the case with