was weakness-no more; he had strained himself in his struggle with Amadina. There was some liquor still remaining in the glass, that would revive him; he took it up. What was that at the bottom? A few grains of greyish powder? He rushed back to the cupboard, and opened the paper. It also contained a few grains of greyish powder. The fearful truth flashed across him in a moment-he was poisoned! He dashed towards the door, but ere he could reach it, a third spasm, more agonizing than the others, laid him prostrate upon the floor. Another, and another, and another, followed in quick succession; and amidst the paroxysms of his agony, he shouted wildly, but with enfeebled articulation, for "help!"-forgetting all but self-preservation-forgetting the awful disclosure that would be made to any one who might come to his assistance. As he writhed in torture, and vainly attempted to crawl from the room, his hands became dabbled in the yet warm blood that oozed from the dead body, and trickled along the floor. But there was no one near to hear his cries, which became weaker and weaker as the deadly poison began to operate, and in a little while all was silent.

When, a day or two afterwards, the neighbours alarmed at the non-appearance of its inmate, broke into the cellar, they found two corpses-one with

the skull fractured, and the face horribly disfigured by the rats, which had gnawed it; and the other bent backwards like a bow, stiff and cold. Amadina's strychnine, purchased by him for destroying those vermin, had done other work!

CHAPTER XXVII.

A PROPOSAL.

I HAVE hinted that a great change had taken place in Danville's feelings towards our Nelly, and must now record a corresponding alteration in her regard for him. This began in her being made acquainted by Lady Trevor with his goodness towards her, after the last act and conviction of her unworthy son. But it was not Danville, the fast, unscrupulous man about town, that was winning Nelly's respect and trust, but quite another person, whom the dear girl had created to receive it-a Danville who now had the privilege of seeing this world, and its men, and things as reflected from the mind of a good woman. Ah! young gentlemen, if you would treat your pretty sisters and cousins like rational beings, and give them a little more of your lordly society, I think you might pick up a thing or two not unlikely to be useful to you in after life. They could not help you to beat Col. Spot at billiards, or to make up that famous book of yours on the Derby, by which you stood to win five thousand, only your

favourite horse was "scratched." Nor would they assist you to frame equivocal speeches for the side scenes, or anecdotes for the smoking-room. They might not be able to make you "jolly fellows," in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but they would, if I do not much miscalculate the influence Providence has given to them, and all kind women, lay the foundation for the honest, brave, and chivalrous emotions which alone make up the character of the real gentleman. I confess that I should look uneasily towards a future, in which a race of men who in their youth avoided drawing-rooms, and thought the society of virtuous girls a bore, should come to be our companions, our legislators, and our governors; ay, or even the commanders of our ships and armies. Thus, before Nelly's gentle touch, the tinsel palaces in which Mr. Danville had been a servile courtier, crumbled into dust; and many a pleasant place, of which he had never heard or thought, was disclosed beyond their ruins. The people who had inhabited them, too, underwent a change. Gay young fellows, in whose society he once delighted, and whose friendship he had valued, appeared somehow to have resolved themselves into a set of empty-headed coxcombs; and the pursuits in which they had indulged in common came out in a very ugly aspect, when tested by the standard of

right and wrong which Nelly-without knowing it -was setting up in his mind.

So Danville cultivated the society of Nelly upon every possible occasion; and when her old dislike began to wear off, as though it had been a mist that had obscured her vision, she saw in memory many little acts of disinterested kindness and sympathy that he had done for her, and was startled at finding how much she had misjudged their author. She remembered all that he had done for their comfort and convenience when they were abroad.

How he had often gone a whole day's journey out of his way to prepare for their reception at the places where they proposed passing the night. How he had given up pleasant engagements and gay companions to be their cicerone over the-to him-hackneyed sights that they visited. How, with his offhand readiness of action, and travelled experience in such matters, he had got them out of several difficulties with regard to baggage and passports, which had threatened to cause them serious inconvenience. How, when once her father was suddenly taken seriously ill, it was Danville's promptness and skill to which, under Providence, he owed his life. How, in short, from the time when Danville first encountered her father and herself at Antwerp, up to within a day or two of Sir Ramon's declaration of love, and poor