Was no one near to aid with gentle skill,
Soothe his last moments, and to close his eyes?
He passed away as lonely and as still,

As morning dew exhaled into the skies:
He seemed to sleep, a smile upon his brow;
Oh, Death, how calm, yet terrible art thou!

There, ceased to beat a heart as honest, good,
As noble as e'er warmed a breast of clay;
We mourn him lost to Mind's bright brotherhood,
In the full strength of manhood called away,
In the expanded bloom of mental powers,
And weaving hopes and plans for future hours.

That lip shall cease mirth's kindly, genial flow,
That eye shall shine with light of soul no more,
That breast no longer feel for wrong and woe,
The brain's world-charming dreams for ever o'er;
Foes now will bear no malice, and each friend,
With added love, above his tomb will bend.

Not bitter was he, though there seemed a sting
In his unsparing words that baseness felt;
His spirit drank at charity's bright spring;
When merit suffered, all his heart could melt:
Treading fame's lofty steep, he felt no pride,
And, guiding others, did not spurn a guide.
Not cynical-he only lashed the times,
Sworn enemy to hypocritic art,

Held up to scorn weak fashion's brilliant crimes,
And bade dishonesty and meanness smart,
Himself all kindness-sympathetic, mild,
In soul a giant-feeling, a young child.

Come Wisdom, with thy grave and pensive brow,
Come Humour, with thy joyous, ready smile,
Come Taste, that to all beauty lov'st to bow,
With Fancy, that creates, and glows the while-
For Nature's painter let your tears be shed,
Oh, mourn a Thackeray, too early dead!

Rest, Fielding of our day, and more than he-
Thy page calls up no blush on virtue's cheek;
The world respects, while weaving wreaths for thee,
And yet to laud thy name we need not seek;
Thy works shall be a trumpet, which thy praise
Shall widely, sweetly sound through future days.

And "Thinkers" to thy grave will oft repair,
And muse on thy career, and learn from thee
To smite men's hydra-follies, yet to bear

A bosom warm with love and sympathy:
Sleep, truthful, kindly heart! though wrapt in night,
Thou leavest on thy page thy spirit's light.

WON OVER;

OR, THE COUNTESS AND THE JESUIT.

BY MRS. BUSHBY.

PART THE THIRD.

I.

POOR AGATHA RECEIVES A TERRIBLE SHOCK.

AGATHA had nearly finished her own preparations in the sewing department for her approaching wedding, and she amused herself by working a beautiful pair of slippers for Alphonse; time stole on, and Christmas at length arrived. Ah, how dull a one to poor Agatha !—for her lover was still away, her friend Hortense was ill, and Madame de Florennes had gone to Louvain to see her. From her brother she seldom heard, and his letters, when they did come, were little else than sermons, for Rudolph seemed to be such a devotee that he appeared to have forgotten all mundane affairs.

New Year's-day passed over also amidst loneliness and ennui; but the Baroness Vanderhoven was better; Madame de Florennes was expected home in order to receive her long-absent son; and again Agatha's spirits rose, and again she made a thousand excuses for him, and looked forward with confidence to the happy event which was to unite her for ever to him to whom she was so deeply attached.

Madame de Florennes returned to Brussels, but she had a cold, and was not visible when Agatha called on her. There was nothing strange in this, for Agatha well knew that the vain old woman never allowed herself to be seen by any one except when she was well rouged and well dressed; that when an invalid she never admitted her most intimate friends. She called, however, daily to inquire for her. Did she hope, in her secret soul, that some morning she might find Alphonse just arrived after his long sojourn in England?

One day she had gone to a library in the Rue Montague de la Cour for a book she wished to read, and while waiting till it was found for her she took up an English newspaper, which lay, with Galignani and some other papers, on the table. Agatha could read and speak a little English, so she selected the Times. By a sort of fatality she looked at the column of births, marriages, and deaths, and after gazing for a moment with a start of horror at the newspaper, she uttered a low cry, and would have fallen fainting to the ground if one of the shopwomen had not observed her totter, and caught her in her arms.

The paragraph which had so affected her was the announcement of the marriage at Brighton, first by the Dean of Chichester, and then according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, of the Chevalier Alphonse de Florennes, of Brussels, to Mary, only daughter of the late William Wells, Esq., of Clapham-common, London!

When poor Agatha recovered from her fainting-fit, the people of the

library called a vigilante, and sent one of the young women home with her, and much astonished her old cousins were to see her arrive, looking more like a corpse than a living being. She had to encounter a whole battery of questions; and when the truth was elicited from her she was overpowered with ejaculations, lamentations, condolences, and abuse of the recreant and faithless Alphonse. But she looked so wretched, and complained of such a dreadful headache, that the two good ladies insisted on her lying down in her own room and keeping quiet, advice with which she was thankful to comply, for at that moment she longed to be left to her own sad thoughts. In the evening she was so very feverish and exhausted, that her hostesses insisted on her taking some orange-flower punch, into which they introduced a narcotic that made the poor girl pass a night of quiet repose. Towards morning she began to dream she was walking on the banks of the Rhine, at pretty little St. Goar, with her hand in Alphonse's, while he was relating the legend of the Lurlei, and pointing out the rock to her; she was listening with eager delight to the animated tones of that dear voice, and glancing from the Lurleiberg to those dark eyes which were bent with so much fondness on her, when some harsh, guttural sounds broke suddenly upon her ear, dispelling the scene of visionary enchantment, and recalling her to the world of sad realities. Her cousins' blowzy little Flemish maid was standing by her bedside with a letter in her hand. It was from the Baroness Vanderhoven.

Agatha tore it open, and read there a repetition of the fatal truth. Hortense broke it to her as delicately as she could, blamed her brother severely, and lamented deeply that any circumstances should have induced him to throw himself away on one so unworthy of him. She expressed her grief and disappointment that her dear friend could not now become her sister in point of fact, but hoped they would always remain sisters in affection and intimacy. She said she never could receive that "Miss Mary Wells," as she still called her, with any approach to cordiality, and that she was certain Alphonse would be miserable with her, for there never could be any sympathy or real love between them. The baroness mentioned, evidently from a desire partially to excuse her brotherthough she disclaimed any wish to do so that Alphonse had been driven to take this step, so much at variance with his feelings and his honour, by the pressure of debts, which he could not see any hope of discharging except by sacrificing himself in a marriage with some rich woman. Madame Vanderhoven did not tell, if she knew it, that the larger proportion of those debts were gambling debts, needlessly and recklessly incurred. She added, that her mother had known, for at least a fortnight before it took place, of this reprehensible marriage, and had informed no one of it, thereby causing the blow to fall more heavily when it was so suddenly announced as un fait accompli. Hortense kindly pressed Agatha to come to her, that they might try to console each other under this unexpected calamity.

Gladly would poor Agatha have gone to her friend-to his sisterfor that was still a strong tie to her; but she heard through the gossiping curé that the newly married couple were in Paris, and intended soon coming to Brussels, where Madame de Florennes was making great preparations to receive them. They would surely pay a wedding visit to Feb.-VOL. CXXX. NO. DXVIII.

M

the baron's château near Louvain, and could she be there to meet then? No-Alphonse must never more behold her-she could not support the glances of pity he would perhaps bestow on her-she could not submit to that hateful "Iceberg's" insolent smiles of triumph. But if she remained at Brussels, she could not entirely avoid the De Florennes; even if she withdrew from all society, she must encounter them in the streets, or in the park-she would leave Brussels-leave altogether the busy, heartless world in which she had now no interest, and seek for peace in the quiet seclusion of a convent.

Agatha wrote to her brother mentioning her intention of retiring into a nunnery, and asking his advice in her choice of one. Rudolph-such an enthusiast himself in religion-hailed with pleasure her pious resolve, and recommended a convent at Liège, the lady abbess of which had been a friend and companion of their mother in her youthful days. To make Agatha's admission more easy, the abbot of St. Dreux wrote to the superior of the Liège convent, and almost before she had time to digest her own plans, or be certain of her own mind, Agatha found herself a lay member of the little community of the convent of "The Nativity" at Liège, one of the few religious houses which had escaped the destruction of nunneries consequent upon the great French revolution. Probably, had she given herself time for reflection, she would have preferred the Béguinage at Ghent or Bruges; but she had only one engrossing thought at the time, and that was to escape from Brussels, and avoid the possibility of meeting Alphonse de Florennes.

The year of her novitiate had nearly expired, but it was still open for her to return to the world and to her friends. Her friends! Where were they? Her brother neglected her her early companion, Bertha, had forgotten her her lover had deserted her-who then remained to her? Only Hortense. She longed, however, to see her again, and to consult with her as to the final step of taking the veil. Agatha was still very young, and nature rebelled against the prospect of imprisonment for life within a convent's walls. She wrote to Hortense begging her to come to Liège, as she much wished for her advice; perhaps though she scarcely allowed it to herself-she also wished to hear how Alphonse got on with the woman who had deprived her of a happy home. But fate seemed determined to crush poor Agatha; the last human heart on which she could depend for kindness and unselfish affection had ceased to beat when her letter reached Louvain.

After a very few hours' illness, the Baroness Vanderhoven and her infant-the child whose coming had been so longed for, and whose birth had been hailed with such joy-were both cold in death, and one grave received the mother and the son.

It was two or three days before the bereaved baron could command himself sufficiently to write to the favourite friend of his lost Hortense, and his letter was so full of woe, so full of the vanity of all hope of earthly happiness, adverted so eloquently to the glorious future in eternal worlds, where those, sundered here, should be reunited in everlasting felicity, that Agatha, participating in his grief, and catching a portion of the exaltation of his excited feelings, determined to become the bride of Heaven, and bid the treacherous world farewell.

Her enthusiastic brother, and his patron, the abbot of St. Dreux, heard soon after, with much satisfaction, that Agatha von Feldheim was no 'more, but that sister Ursula was added to the pious flock who had taken the vows in the nunnery of the Nativity at Liège.

II.

IS THE CAPRICE OF GENIUS PARDONABLE ?

WHEN Alphonse de Florennes left Baden-Baden, he had not formed any plan of transferring his devoirs from Agatha von Feldheim to the English "fortune," though the idea might certainly have entered his mind that the command of her money would be agreeable. It was impossible to close his eyes against that fact, any more than against the knowledge that if he chose to look after "the Iceberg" he would have no difficulty in marrying her; the difficulties were all on his own side.

He was not accustomed to put any restraint on his inclinations, and these certainly did not lean towards Miss Wells herself. Her figure was too large and ungainly; her waist-where was it? No undulating line was to be seen-she looked as if a head and throat had been attached, like a pediment, to a shaft of deal boards nailed together; there was not even the roundness of an architectural column, the flat clumsy feet were lifted awkwardly in walking, and the fingers on the red hands looked very like two bunches of overgrown radishes; her features, though well formed, were verging towards the colossal; her eyes, as before mentioned, cold and stony, and her complexion of that dead, chalky, cadaverous white, which somehow always reminds one of the fabled vampire-the ghoulwhose life is retained by the suction of human blood. She had a profusion of fine hair, however, of a tint scarcely darker than flaxen. But though he admired her hair, that was not quite enough for one so critical in beauty as Monsieur de Florennes was. And she had no soul-point d'âme -that was a great want; for though Alphonse did not much disapprove of the Turkish fashion of harems, he did disapprove of inanity in ladies, and therefore could not agree in the Moslem indifference to, or rather belief in, their want of souls.

Miss Wells was quiet, and therefore not unladylike in manners; but had Alphonse ever been much among English people he would have quickly perceived-which he did not that she had not exactly the tone of good society in England. But she dressed well-had handsome rooms at one of the best hotels in Baden-Baden-had her smart English carriage with her there, and spent money freely; nobody knew, or inquired, about her birth, parentage, or education.

Really Miss Mary Wells was a very presentable young woman, and when Alphonse had bade her adieu at Baden, as she honestly thought for ever, the fancy did enter into his brain that she might be bearable with one hundred thousand pounds sterling to back her. He gave one sigh to her money, half a sneer, half a smile to herself, and then, with no very lover-like empressement, handed Agatha into the railway carriage for Carlsruhe and Heidelberg. He was somewhat absent on the journey, but his ill humour seemed fairly to break out when the party stepped on board the steamer at Mayence in a drizzling rain.