not a single link extending beyond the locksmith's dwelling. Sparks was accordingly acquitted; but as no other clue was found to direct suspicion, it still lay upon him like a cloud. The vindictive merchant and the dissatisfied bankers did not hesitate to declare that, although the charge could not be legally brought home, they had no doubt whatever of his guilt. This opinion was taken up and reiterated, until thousands who were too careless to investigate the story, were satisfied that Amos was a rogue. How should the character of a poor man hold out against the deliberate slanders of so many rich ones ?"

Amos rejoiced in his acquittal as one who felt that the jury had performed a solemn duty faithfully, and who was glad to find that his personal experience had strengthened, rather than impaired, his reliance on the tribunals of his country. He embraced his family, as one snatched from great responsibility and peril, and his heart overflowed with thankfulness when at night they were all once more assembled round the fireside, the scene of so much hap piness and unity in other days. But yet Amos felt that, though acquitted by the jury, he was not by the town. He saw that in the faces of some of the jury and most of the audience, which he was too shrewd an observer to misunderstand. He wished it were

otherwise; but he was contented to take his chance of some subsequent revelation, and if it came not, of living down the foul suspicion which Providence had permitted, for some wise purpose, to hover for a time around his name.

But Amos had never thought of how he was to live. The cold looks, averted faces, and rude scandal of the neighbourhood, could be borne, because really there was some excuse to be found in the circumstances, and because he hoped that there would be a joyful ending of it all at some future day. But the loss of custom first opened his eyes to his real situation. No work came to his shop: he made articles but could not sell them; and as the little money he had saved was necessarily exhausted in the unavoidable expenses of the trial, the family found it impossible, with the utmost exertion and economy, to meet their current outlay; one article of furniture after another was reluctantly sacrificed, or some little comfort abridged, until, at the end of months of degradation and absolute distress, their bare board was spread within bare walls, and it became necessary to beg, to starve, or to remove. The latter expe

dient had often been suggested in family consultations, and it is one that in America is the common remedy for all great calamities. If a man fails in a city on the seaboard, he removes to Ohio; if a clergyman offers violence to a fair parishioner, he removes to Albany, where he soon becomes "very much respected;" if a man in Michigan whips a bowie-knife between a neighbour's ribs, he removes to Missouri. So that, in fact, a removal is the "sovereign'st thing on earth" for all great and otherwise overwhelming evils. The Sparks would have removed, but they still clung to the hope that the real perpetrator would be discovered, and the mystery cleared up; and besides, they thought it would be an acknowledgment of the justice of the general suspicion, if they turned their backs and fled. They lived upon the expectation of the renewed confidence and companionship of old friends and neighbours, when Providence should deem it right to draw the veil aside. But to live longer

in Philadelphia was impossible, and the whole family prepared to depart; their effects were easily transported, and, as they had had no credit since the arrest, there was nobody to prevent them from seeking a livelihood elsewhere.

Embarking in one of the river boats, they passed up the Schuyl kill, and settled at Norristown. The whole family being indus. trious and obliging, they soon began to gather comforts around them; and as these were not embittered by the cold looks and insulting sneers of the vicinage, they were comparatively happy for a time. But even here there was for them no permanent place of rest. A merchant passing through Norristown, on his way from the capital to the Blue Mountains, recognised Sparks, and told somebody he knew that he wished the community joy of having added to the number of its inhabitants the notorious locksmith of Philadelphia. The news soon spread; the family found that they were shunned as they had formerly been by those who had known them longer than the good people of Norristown, and had a fair prospect of starvation opening before them. They removed again. This time there was no inducement to linger, for they had no local attachments to detain them. They crossed the mountains, and descending into the vale of the Susquehanna, pitched their tent at Sunbury. Here the same temporary success excited the same hopes, only to be blighted in the bud by the breath of slander, which seemed so widely cir culated as to leave them hardly any asylum within the limits of the State. We need not enumerate the different towns and villages in which they essayed to gain a livelihood, were suspected, shunned, and foiled. They had nearly crossed the State in its whole length; been driven from Pittsburgh, and were slowly wending their way further west, and were standing on the high ground overlooking Middleton, as though doubtful if there was to be rest for the soles of their feet even there; they hesitated to try a new experiment. Sparks seated himself on a stone beneath a spreading sycamorehis family clustered around him on the grass-they had travelled far, and were weary; and without speaking a word, as their eyes met, and they thought of their prolonged sufferings and slender hopes, they burst into a flood of tears, in which Sparks, bury. ing his face in the golden locks of the sweet girl who bowed her head upon his knee, joined audibly.

At length, wiping away his tears, and checking the rising sobs that shook his manly bosom, "God's will be done, my children," said the locksmith, "we cannot help weeping, but let us not inurmur. Our Heavenly Father has tried and is trying us, doubtless for some wise purpose; and if we are still to be wanderers and outcasts on the earth, let us never lose sight of his promise, which assures us of an eternal refuge in a place where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. I was perhaps too proud of that skill of mine; too apt to plume myself upon it above others whose gifts had been less abundant; to take all the credit, and give none to him by whom the human brain is wrought into mysterious adaptation to particular sciences and pursuits. My error has been that of wiser and greater men, who have been made to feel that what we cherish as the richest of earthly blessings sometimes turns out a curse."

To dissipate the gloom which hung over the whole party, and be. guile the half-hour that they intended to rest in that sweet spot.

Mrs. Sparks drew out a Philadelphia newspaper, which somebody had given her upon the road, and called their attention to the deaths and marriages, that they might see what changes were taking place in a city that still interested them, though they were banished for ever from its borders. She had hardly opened the paper when her eye glanced at an article which she was too much excited to read. Amos, wondering at the emotion displayed, gently disengaged the paper, and read, "Bank robber-Sparks not the man." His own feelings were as powerfully affected as his wife's, but his nerves were stronger, and he read out to an audience, whose ears devoured every syllable of the glad tidings, an account of the conviction and execution of a wretch in Alba. ny, and who had confessed, among other daring and heinous crimes, the robbery of the Philadelphia bank; accounting for the dissipation of the property, and entirely exonerating Sparks, whose face he had never seen. These were "glad tidings of great joy" to the weary wayfarers beneath the sycamore, whose hearts overflowed with thankfulness to the Father of Mercies, who had given them strength to bear the burden of affliction, and had lifted it from their spirits ere they had been crushed beneath the weight. Their resolution to return to their native city was formed at once; and before a week had passed, they were slowly journeying towards the capital of the State.

Meanwhile an extraordinary revulsion of feeling had taken place at Philadelphia. Newspapers, and other periodicals, which had formerly been loud in condemnation of the locksmith, now blazoned abroad the robber's confession, wondered how any man could even have been for a moment suspected upon such evidence as was adduced upon the trial; drew pictures of the domestic felicity once enjoyed by the Sparks, and then painted-partly from what was known of the reality, and partly from imagination, their sufferings, privations, and wrongs, in the pilgrimage they had performed in fleeing from an unjust, but damnatory accusation. The whole city rang with the story; old friends and neighbours, who had been the first to cut them, now became the loud and vehement partisans of the family. Everybody was anxious to know where they were. Some reported that they had perished in the woods; others that they had been burnt in a prairie; while not a few believed that the locksmith, driven to desperation, had first destroyed his family, and then himself. All these stories, of course, created as much excitement as the robbery of the bank had done before, only that this time the tide set the other way; and, by the time the poor locksmith and his family, who had been driven like vagabonds from the city, approached its suburbs, they were met, congratulated, and followed by thousands, to whom, from the strange vicissitudes of their lot, they had become objects of interest. In fact, theirs was almost a triumphal entry; and, as the public always like to have a victim, they were advised on all hands to bring an action against the directors of the bank; large damages would, it was affirmed, be given, and the bank deserved to suffer for the causeless ruin brought on a poor but industrious family. Sparks was reluctant to engage in any such proceedings; his character was vindicated, his business restored, he occupied his own shop, and his family were comfortable and content. But the current of public opinion was too strong for him. All Philadelphia had determined that the bankers should pay. An eminent lawyer volunteered to conduct his suit, and make no charge, if a liberal verdict were not obtained. The locksmith pondered the matter well; his own wrongs

he freely forgave; but he thought that there had been a readiness to secure the interests of a wealthy corporation, by blasting the prospects of a humble mechanic, which, for the good of society, ought not to pass unrebuked; he felt that the moral effect of such a prosecution would be salutary, teaching the rich not to presume too far upon their affluence, and cheering the hearts of the poor while suffering unmerited persecu tion. The suit was commenced, and urged to trial, notwithstanding several attempts at compromise on the part of the bank. The pleadings on both sides were able and ingenious; but the counsel for the defend. ant had a theme worthy of the fine powers he possessed; and, at the close of a pathetic and eloquent declamation, the audience, which had formerly condemned Amos in their hearts without evidence, were melted to tears by the recital of his sufferings; and, when the jury returned with a verdict of ten thousand dollars damages against the bank, the locksmith was honoured by a ride home on their shoulders, amidst a hurricane of cheers.

BADEN REMINISCENCES.

BY MOTLEY.

Dear George, don't be wroth, but I must beg your pardon,
You can't mean to say that you never saw Baden,

The Spa of all others in fashion just now,

Indeed, I have heard many young ladies vow,

That, search ev'ry part of this world though you may,
You'll ne'er find a séjour so lively and gay:

I'm hard to convince in such matters, you know,
But in this case, I own, 'tis a place "comme il faut ;"
Though here, as elsewhere, there are drawbacks a few,
Of which I can give an example or two:

The climate is frightful,

The valleys delightful,

The promenades charming,

The dampness alarming,

And then the excursions :-the castle an old one :

The Schloss Eberstein, too, the drive is a cold one;

La Favorite, famous for Madame Sibylla,

Who prized her own beauty, and ne'er wore the willow :

But, bless me the ball-room,-I'd nearly forgot

To speak of its glories; its atmosphere hot;

Its counts promenading,

Its Poles gallopading,
Its debutantes pretty,
Its London beaux witty,
Its waltz-its quadrille,
Crême à la Vanille,
Its matchmaking mothers,
Its poor younger brothers,
Its rouge-et-noir table,
Where all who are able
Get rid of their cash,

For the sake of a dash,

And when they at length find that playing is ruin,
They've one consolation, 'twas all their own doing.

OLIVER TWIST;

OR, THE PARISH BOY'S PROGress.

BY BOZ.

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

"YES," said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy, the beating of whose heart he might have heard. "That is their bastard child."

"The term you use," said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, "is a reproach to those who long since passed beyond the feeble censure of this world. It reflects true disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. He was born in this town?"

Let that pass.

"In the workhouse of this town," was the sullen reply. "You have the story there." He pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke. "I must have it here, too," said Mr. Brownlow, looking round upon the listeners.

"Listen, then," returned Monks. "His father being taken ill at Rome, as you know, was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long separated, who went from Paris, and took me with her, -to look after his property, for what I know, for she had no great affection for him, nor he for her. He knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he slumbered on till next day, when he died. Among the papers in his desk were two, dated on the night when his illness first came on, directed to yourself, and enclosed in a few short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package that it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead. One of these papers was a letter to this girl Agnes, and the other a will."

"What of the letter ?" asked Mr. Brownlow.

“The letter?—A sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a penitent confession, and prayers to God to help her. He had palmed a tale on the girl that some secret mystery-to be explained one day-prevented his marrying her just then, and so she had gone on trusting patiently to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what none could ever give her back. She was at that time within a few months of her confinement. He told her all he had meant to do to hide her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on her or their young child; for all the guilt was his. He reminded her of the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her Christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he hoped one day to have bestowed upon her-prayed her yet to keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done before-and then ran on wildly in the same