and
coarse epithets, Clara reached the drawing-room, and spent some hours
struggling with the stings of conscience aroused by Mardyn's taunts. They
had heard that morning of Sir John Daventry's death, and the removal of
the only being who lived to suffer for their sin had seemed but to add a
deeper gloom to their miserable existence--the time was past when any thing
could bid them hope. Her past career passed through the guilty woman's
mind, and filled her with dread, and a fearful looking out for judgment.
She had not noticed how time had fled, till she saw it was long past
Mardyn's hour for retiring, and that he had not come up stairs yet.
Another hour passed, and then a vague fear seized upon her mind--she felt
frightened at being alone, and descended to the parlor. She had brought no
light with her, and when she reached the door she paused; all in the house
seemed so still she trembled, and turning the lock, entered the room. The
candles had burnt out, and the faint red glare of the fire alone shone
through the darkness; by the dim light she saw that Mardyn was sitting,
his arms folded on the table, and his head reclined as if in sleep. She
touched him, he stirred not, and her hand, slipping from his shoulder,
fell upon the table and was wet; she saw that a decanter had been
overturned, and fancied Mardyn had been drinking, and fallen asleep; she
hastened from the room for a candle. As she seized a light burning in the
passage, she saw that the hand she had extended was crimsoned with blood.
Almost delirious with terror, she regained the room. The light from her
hand fell on the table--it was covered with a pool of blood, that was
falling slowly to the floor. With a wild effort she raised her husband--his
head fell on her arm--the throat was severed from ear to ear--the
countenance set, and distorted in death.

In that moment the curse of an offended God worked its final vengeance on
guilt--Clara Mardyn was a lunatic.

MIRABEAU. AN ANECDOTE OF HIS PRIVATE LIFE. (FROM CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH
JOURNAL.)

The public life as well as the private character of Mirabeau are
universally known, but the following anecdote has not, we believe, been
recorded in any of the biographies. The particulars were included in the
brief furnished to M. de Galitzane, advocate-general in the parliament of
Provence, when he was retained for the defense of Madame Mirabeau in her
husband's process against her. M. de Galitzane afterwar