India, in which, as too many, alas! had done, Major Rivers had left the bulk of his fortune— which, though never large, had enabled them to live in comfort and even luxury. He had returned, after a life of active service in almost every quarter of the globe, with a worn-out constitution and suffering also from a severe wound received at Waterloo-to the place of his birth. He found it transformed from a village into a gay watering-place. The scenery around was, however, lovely; and many a quiet walk still remained to recall to him the years of childhood. "The village church among the trees," was still there, "pointing with taper spire to heaven." He determined, therefore, though the changes he found, had at first disappointed him, to take up his abode there, and purchased a pretty villa,-from whence, though the buildings and town were excluded from sight by the shrubbery around it, he could yet see the spire of the church. This villa, though modern, being built after the ancient form, was

denominated the Grange ;-there he had resided many years, there had his children, excepting the two elder ones, been born. For the last two or three years an invalid sister— the only one of a numerous family he had found living to welcome his return to his native land—had been an inmate of their happy dwelling; for, through the treachery of a man to whom, as he bore the name of a friend of her father and the family, had been confided the management of her property, she had been left destitute. It had been deemed advisable to sell a small landed property which had been left her, and transfer the proceeds to the funds-as being more suitable and giving less trouble to her, as a woman. This her false friend had engaged to do, but he had appropriated the money to speculation, instead of vesting it in the funds; and, as he had for many years regularly paid her the interest of the sum supposed to be realized, she had never discovered the fraud until his own ruin and flight to

America revealed the sad fact of his treachery; and, excepting by a few private letters to her, she had not even the means of proving that he had been employed by her in the transaction. In her brother Miss Rivers had, however, found a protector and friend; and it had been to him a source of pleasure to receive her into his own house, and to train his children to shew every attention to the poor, and sometimes fretful and exacting, invalid.

The health of Major Rivers was very feeble, —it was, indeed, the only severe trial which had been permitted to mar the peace of the happy family; and this trial was lightened by the cheerful piety with which it was borne. He was a "devout soldier, who feared God with all his house," and sincerely was he respected and loved by all his neighbours, both rich and poor. Sincere was the grief experienced by all who knew him at hearing Mr. Morley, one Sunday morning, ask the prayers of the church for Ernest Frederick Rivers; and great the

sorrow at learning that, after a few hours only of suffering, he had breathed his last. The blow, at first, as we have seen, had almost overwhelmed the poor widow; but when, in the course of the following week, the intelligence was conveyed to her that the house of Ad & Co. had failed, and that they were left almost destitute, she could then thank God that he had been pleased to remove her beloved husband to that better world, where grief, pain, and sorrow are unknown.

CHAPTER II.

“We are poor, but in the wealth of love, in that Bianca, in that, we are Eastern Sultans."-MILMAN.

YES, even Mrs. Rivers soon saw and acknowledged the mercy which had taken away her husband from "the evil to come." Trials, which to her and her children would seem light and trivial, would have been grievous to him; and every deprivation which his beloved ones had to undergo would have conveyed to his sensitive mind a reproach. He would have blamed himself for having left so large a sum in the hands of those who were liable to fail. Comforted now by the thought that he was spared what it would be their duty to encounter, she applied her active and vigorous mind to the