were
unable to trace a single letter of the concluding page.

"My poor husband!" at last she sobbed, "the punishment of Cain was light
when compared with yours. Oh! let me hope that He, who willeth not the
death of a sinner, has accepted your repentance and pardoned your sin."

A gentle grasp was laid upon the shoulder of the mourner; and she looked
up into the dark expressive face of her deformed sister.

She too had her tale of sorrow. Their mother was dead, but her end was
peaceful and full of humble hope, and Mary, the pious Mary, could not
wish her back. She had no home now,--she had come to share the home of
her more fortunate sister. At first, she could not comprehend the cause
of Sophy's tears, of her deep distress; for the news of Noah Cotton's
arrest and death had not reached her, while in close attendance upon the
obscure death-bed of her mother.

What a mournful history Sophy had to tell; and how deeply Mary
sympathised in all her afflictions! Left in comfortable and even
affluent circumstances, (for the lawyer employed to wind up Noah
Cotton's affairs found that he had large sums invested in several banks,
and all his property was willed to his wife,) Sophy was no longer
haunted by the dread of poverty, but she often was heard to say with a
sigh, that poverty, though a great evil, was not the greatest she had
had to contend with; that much as she had in former days murmured over
her humble lot while working for daily bread, she was far happier than
in the possession of wealth, that had been acquired by dishonest means,
and which might emphatically be called _The wages of sin!_ "A little
that the righteous hath, is better than great riches of the ungodly."

CHAPTER XXIII.

TRUST IN GOD.

A few words more, and my tale is ended.

The death of Noah Cotton, fraught as it was with agony to his wife, was
the means of rescuing the child of his first love, Ella Carlos, from
ruin--the little girl, whose striking likeness to her mother had made
such an impression on the mind of her unfortunate and guilty lover.
After the death of Sir Walter Carlos, who was the last of his name, and,
saving the young Ella Manners, his sister's orphan child, the last of
his race, the estate at F---- was sold to pay his debts, and the noble
property, that had been for several ages in the family, passed into the
hands of strangers. The young Ella, left dependent upon the charity of
an aunt of her fathers, married the cur