paused to gain time, that he might execute more perfectly the start of affected horror, and

the reproachful tone, with which he accompanied his response:

"Can you doubt it? Is it possible my in

fatuated cousin can have so far innoculated you with his opinions, as to make you mistrust the words of revelation? Pray! my dear young lady, pray! and God will give you his grace to dissipate your doubts, and teach you your duty in this arduous trial, on which depend your own happiness, and that of others."

And with these words, pronounced with an air of truth, earnestness and conviction, which would have imposed on a far more practical person than Miriam, the infamous hypocrite took his leave.

The full infamy of Mr. Covert's character may be conceived from this, that with his searching insight into human nature, he fully understood the idea which had prompted Miriam's question. He read in it the purpose of

a soul, who sees no further hope in this world, and unable to bear up against the burthen of despair, meditates casting herself voluntarily, into the awful abyss of the future.

But this monster, far from pausing at the shadow of this coming event-this crime, into which he was urging Miriam—hailed it, as contributing only the more surely and readily, to the fulfilment of his own selfish machinations; as he soliloquized thus:

"If she makes away with herself, then Gerald will in all human probability, follow her, whether he shortens his days or dies of grief for her loss; for it is certain these two fools are mad about each other. Then the field is clear for me. Once master of the Lindor estates, promotion in the Church will soon follow, and Lady Augusta will still be able to carry out the wishes of the Earl and Baronet, and unite the two estates by marrying me."

The above may serve to show the reader, the deep game Covert was playing. Otherwise, his conduct in trying to get rid of Miriam,

and his promise to bring about the union of Gerald with Lady Augusta, may have appeared inconsistent with his own interested views. His object in thus seeming so zealous to serve Lady Augusta, was, of course, to found a claim, through her gratitude, on her future favour.

BOOK FOURTH.

THE SACRIFICE.

CHAPTER I.

SELF-DESTRUCTION IN FANCY.

"Death! Death! O amiable lovely Death!
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy detestable bones;
And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows;

And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
And be a carrion monster like thyself!

Come, grin on me ; and I will think thou smil'st,
And buss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,
O, come to me!"

SHAKESPERE.

It would unnecessarily sadden the reader's heart to dwell in detail, on the arguments

.

used by the unprincipled Covert, who so shamefully abused the influence lent him by the sacred office which he disgraced, to accomplish his detestable design. When an author has something extremely painful and horrible to disclose, it should at least be told as succinctly as possible. The arts of Covert were destined to prove only too successful. The idea once planted in Miriam's mind, that her duty and her love for Gerald, required a self-sacrifice in the renouncement of the delicious future she had hoped for in a life spent with him, began to germinate. Why expend pages in minutely describing the details of the mental conflict, every alternation between hope and despair, every vibration between her sublime love for Gerald, and the supposed voice of duty, which said that they must separate?

When, in moments of comparatively calm reflection, she listened only to the pleadings of her true woman's instinct, unwarped by the insinuations of sophistry and hypocrisy,