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atmosphere, and tight packing, for the chance of picking up "something remarkably cheap ;" and gossips, who keenly watch wha their" improvident neighbours buy;" in truth, the auction-hunter in every variety was to be viewed on that morning. And Roddam

among the rest. Mastered by some irresistible impulse he had wandered away from home, and had entered a house which for years he had carefully shunned, and there sat silent and abstracted. Stealthily, and almost unperceived, he had made his way to a quiet corner, and there mused solitary and sad amid the noisy scene around him. The sale had reached the Commercial Room, and the auctioneer's hammer was busy. The crimson curtains had passed to a new owner, "a most decided bargain.". The deeply-indented dining-tables had fallen to a convivial gentleman "cheap as dirt.” An antique mirror in an elaborately carved oak frame was the next lot. As for the mirror, those must have been marvellously keensighted who could have recognised their own features on its dull and blackened surface; but the setting in which this faithless glass was enshrined was superb. It portrayed the leading scenes in the life of Joseph, was said to have come originally from a church in Flanders, and bore a date of 1694. The competition for it was keen, and at last, at a fancy price, it passed to a London dealer.

As the hammer fell he advanced to claim and remove his treasure. The latter feat was not easy of accomplishment. The frame was tightly riveted to the wall, and it seemed a puzzle how the glass could be removed without extensive injury to the carving. At last -after much manoeuvring, and tapping, and gentle though continuous pressure-the divorce between these old acquaintances is effected. The companionship of many long years terminates. The dusky mirror is dissevered from its elaborate frame-work, and in a few seconds both are safely landed on the floor. The old man sat near at hand,-listlessly watching the process-silent-and to all appearance absorbed in gloomy thought. None heeded him. Nor did he offer opinion or salutation to human being. On a sudden he darts forward. A bulky letter has dropped on the floor from behind the space which the glass covered. With a shrill shout, distinctly audible above the buzz and hum and clamour of that crowded room, he seizes it, buries it in his bosom, and shrieks delightedly, "Mine! Mine! This belongs to me, AND IT CLEARS HIM!"

The sensation which this interruption caused was general; nor was the confusion lessened when the Curiosity Dealer confronted the aged speaker, and in boisterous terms demanded the letter; alleging that it "was sold with the mirror; and that all behind the mirror, and about the mirror, and adhering to the mirror, was his by right of purchase,—and his alone."

"No! no!" shrieked the old man in a still shriller key-" it can't be your's-and it shan't be yours-I'll not resign it. It's mine for the present-mine! It's the missing letter,-the lost letter, the money letter-it's found-and it clears my poor boy."

The tone of wild delight with which the last words were uttered made many a heart throb, and dimmed the vision of many an eye in that motley assemblage.

Nothing moves the masses more than the exhibition of deep feeling. It speaks a language which the very humblest can understand, and challenges a response which not even the most callous are disposed to withhold.

One or two commiserating spectators with kind intentions now approached him; but he impetuously waived them aside, and with a speed, wonderful at his years, and which strong excitement could alone have supplied, rushed towards his home. There he summoned his clergyman; and to him told his tale, and displayed his treasure trove. Mr. Meyrick quickly mastered his agitated statement; and hastily assembling two or three leading men of the place as witnesses told them the course he was about to pursue. The letter lay before them yellow with age, soiled with dust and smoke, but with the seal entire. What years of sorrow-what protracted and agonising suspense had visited all those,-more or less interested in its contents, since the hour it had been first thrust into its unsuspected resting place! The tears-the sighs-the reiterated regrets -the anxious days-the sleepless nights which that discoloured packet had occasioned! Another moment will confirm or falsify the day-dream of that tremulous old man who for years has hourly prayed that "poor Jasper's innocence might be made fully apparent, and his memory freed from stain."

In silence the seal is broken: and the enclosures are laid singly and separately on the table. There they challenge scrutiny. Three notes for fifty each: one for 5l.: another for 21.: in all 1571.: the exact sum remitted, and for which "an immediate acknowledgment is requested, and indeed expected, as a matter of course!"

Alas! for human commands and human expectations, the hand which penned this injunction had been long motionless in the grave. "Jasper's statement, then, was true "said Mr. Meyrick sadly— “he had faithfully "

A deep and choking sob interrupted the speaker. It rose from the further corner of the apartment. The thankful parent was on his knees; his head bowed in lowly guise upon his bosom; his withered hands raised joyfully heavenwards; while his eager thanksgivings were mingled with hot and fast falling tears. They told their own tale-a sudden gush of joy in an aged, crushed, and desolate heart;-springing from a pure and holy source-quenchless affection for a calumniated child; one who to him had never died. "Ah!" was his all but inaudible exclamation, "if he-if he had but survived this day!"

Devoted and disinterested old man! His own reverses,—the slander and suspicions which had been heaped upon himself,—his reduced means,-his burdened patrimony,-his abrupt dismissal from office, the scoff and the sneer which he had braved and borne, -these were all forgotten. He did not waste on them a thought. His son alone was present to him,-his unmerited sufferings, his tarnished name, his early death. Oh! wondrous power of parental love! How brightly does it burn even on the confines of eternity! Its lustre the rising mists of the grave cannot dim. Its energy the infirmities of age cannot quench. It defies the power of time and circumstances. Wealth, influence, station, scholarship, all may perish and pass away, but parental love survives-earnest, vigorous, indestructible, inexhaustible!

Evening verged on midnight, but Mr. Roddam's kind friends would not quit him. They feared the result. Nature's powers were over-tasked. He talked, and laughed, and wept by turns. At last they persuaded him to retire to rest.

"If you require it," said he eventually, "I will obey you. But

it is useless. I am too happy to sleep. No slumber at present will visit my eyelids. My heart is too light."

After he withdrew, those below mused over the next step to be taken, and debated how the letter could, in the first instance, have been secreted. It was suggested that mere carelessness might have caused the difficulty; that, very possibly, some inquisitive "Commercial" raised it from the table, read the address, and then stuck it carelessly between the wall and the carved framework of the mirror, a favourite depot for correspondence in many a commercial-room,— dislodged from whence by the slamming of the door, or by some current of air, it had dropped so low down between mirror and wall as to be wholly out of sight.

But the more general impression was that it had been purposely hidden, that it was one of the practical jokes perpetrated on that fatal St. Patrick's Day,-and that the hoaxer-the traveller in the doll's-eye line, by the way, was hugely suspected-finding the hubbub raised by his folly fraught with the most serious consequences, had not the manly courage or generous feeling to step forward and frankly avow the part he had acted, and thus at once clear the innocent.

Meanwhile the midnight hour pressed on, and an old and faithful servant, who had adhered to the Roddams in all their trials, went from time to time to her master's room and listened at his door. His looks had alarmed her. She "had had little liking," as she afterwards sorrowfully avowed, "for his flushed cheek and strangely bright eye." She heard him praising God fervently for "this great mercy, for this late discovery which he had been spared to see,for deigning to clear in His own time and in His own way his poor son's name,-none could call him fraudulent or dishonest NOW!" Again and again were these earnest thanksgivings uttered. They were his last.

All was silent at daybreak on the following morning.

That happy spirit had soared away. That thankful, grateful heart had ceased to throb and suffer. Without a struggle he had passed away in sleep into the presence of The All-Merciful. Father and son were united. They were dwellers in a world where no calumny wounds and no separation severs.

I had never seen Mr. Bohun so moved as on the day when the necessary inquest over Mr. Roddam was held. Fortunately, the evidence tendered was very brief. Unwonted exertion, on the previous day, had done its work, Strong excitement had, by some few weeks or months, precipitated the last summons; and the verdict returned was simply, "Died by the visitation of God."

But after the proceedings were terminated, the few remarks made by my able and fearless employer on the folly of adopting rash conclusions, and the sin of pronouncing uncharitable judgments, was in the highest degree dignified, just, and true.

"It's worth a dozen drowsy sermons on the guilt of evil speaking," said a juryman.

"And it falls," said another, "with admirable effect from his lips, who was never yet known to adopt an uncharitable version of any occurrence, or to join in an attempt to crush a falling man."

9

THE CALIPH'S DAUGHTER.

AN ADVENTURE IN MODERN BAGDAD.

"Sir, it is impossible. It cannot be true. Don't tell that story again. You cannot think how poor a figure you make in telling it."-DOCTOR JOHNSON.

THREE summer days the willing breeze blew on,
That swept us down the Tigris: on the fourth,
It fail'd at even. Slowly plunged the sun
Through golden sheets of calm; our pennon droop'd
Low on the folded sail; the very sound
Of broken ripples paused, as twilight fell.

Then rose the buzz of converse, they who slept,
Languid and fainting through the fiery noon,
Awoke and lit their pipes. Some fondly gazed
On thy sweet uplands, glorious Laristan,
Hued with deep evening violet; and some
Discoursed of markets and of merchandise,
And the late rise in turbans. As for me,

I puff'd my pipe in silence.

"Can it be,"

I mutter'd—half in musing, half aloud—

"That yon tame town was the sublime Bagdad,

Of which I've dreamt since boyhood? Life! the man

Who penn'd the famous Nights of Araby

Was some untravell'd scribbler not a crumb

Of the most faint adventure have I touch'd,

From first to last: I've lost both toil and time!
Congenial spirits! are ye thus no more?

Where's Cogia Hassan? Where's the Barmecide?
Where's Little Hunchback? Often have I ask'd,
And ask'd in vain. Things are not as they were.
I'm sorry that I came !

Around me lay,
Stretch'd on the deck, my fellow-voyagers;
A motley lot: one straightway answer made,-
Shade of St. Vitus, what a man was he!
Uncouthly warp'd about, his twisted head
O'erlook'd his better shoulder, while around
His bare neck ran a flushing crimson streak,
As if he'd 'scaped half hung. Thus he began,
His wild eye flashing brightly as he spoke;

"Rot all adventures! if you wish to learn
Of yon Bagdad my brief experience,
You're welcome to the cursed narrative:
"Twill cure, I think, your blindfold hankering
For this infernal East!"

"It seems," said I,

"You've met with something queer: begin, I beg,
I've seen your head, so pray disclose your tale."
Hereat a whey-faced bagman gravely smiled,
And seconded my bidding. Thus adjured,
Spoke my distorted friend.

"As to my name,

It matters little; you may dub me Smith,
'Twill answer every purpose. Know then, first,
That I was born an English gentleman

Some twenty years ago. From earliest youth,

Vague dreams of travel seized me; nought would serve My purpose but adventures; and when these

In town and college gradually pall'd,

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Fleeced in the former-in the latter pluck'd,
I mizzled in disgust: the gorgeous East,'
Radiant with dreams of gilded palaces,

Of Caliphs and Sultanas, dark-eyed maids,
Romantic thieves, enchanters, Afrites, Ghouls,
Seraglios, sleeping beauties, and what not,
Seem'd a fair field of exploit. Off I shot,
Bound for Bagdad. The morning papers whined,
Return, rash youth! and all shall be forgiven !'
Not quite so green; one balmy morning found
Me snugly lodged in Monkey-street, Bagdad.
Three days I spent adventureless; the next
Produced one with a vengeance,—you shall hear,—
Genie and all, I swear it happen'd thus :-

I sat beside the Tigris, where it flows

Through Bagdad's royal arches starr'd with gold,
From washing palace-walls and water-gates
Of terraced gardens, southward for the sea.
Above the city rose: the sunset fire
Fell grandly on its purple battlements,
On mosque and orb'd pavilion; dying down
Into a gorgeous twilight. Slowly drew
A river-mist around me; the low sound
Of distant music ceased, and all was still.

Then, through the gloom, a dark-brow'd Genie strode,
Ill-favour'd, swart and huge: his naked bulk

Roll'd, an uncouth colossus: heavily

He clapp'd me on the shoulder,- Christian, rise,
And follow me.'

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"And, who the devil are you?'

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I answer'd him, quite startled, Whither, pray,
Am I to follow,-to some cavern hole,

And there get eaten up? I'm not so green.'

"The monster grinn'd, and scratch'd its hideous head, And laugh'd, and rubb'd its hands: it seems my fears (For I, in truth, was in the sorest funk

That ever mortal felt-and shew'd it too)

Flatter'd it much. Pooh-pooh!' at length he said,

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