Chandos kissed the letter over and over again. It is wonderful in the moments of distress and abandonment, when false friends forsake, and the light world of acquaintances shun us, how sweetly, how cheeringly, even small testimonies of undiminished regard come to us from the true and firm. Oh, how Chandos Winslow loved Rose Tracy at that moment! How he longed to tell her the sensations that her generous anxiety to save him even at the expense of pain and shame to herself inspired in his bosom! He dared not, however, write all he felt; but in the course of that evening he expressed his thanks in a way which he thought would shadow forth, to her eye at least, the deeper feelings which he could not venture to dwell upon. To write the letter was a happiness to him; but when he came to conclude it with a "farewell," something seemed to ask him, if it might not be the last. He fell into deep, sad thought again, and gloomy despondency took possession of him altogether. He thought he could have been careless of life but for Rose Tracy; and he felt sadly how acuminated and intense become the affections which attach us to existence here when they all centre in one object. CHAPTER XXVIII. The assizes were opened at the town of S---- with all due solemnity. There were sheriffs, and magistrates, and town council, and javelin-men, all on the move. The judges went to church and to dinner. The day of that most disgraceful of exhibitions, an assize ball, was fixed, and the grand jury was sworn and charged. Did a grand jury perform its functions properly, or even know all its attributes as they were formerly exercised, and still exist, it would be one of the most useful institutions in the monarchy; but, alas! its just attributes are nearly forgotten, its functions are falling into desuetude, and it confines its operations, almost always, to returning as true those bills presented to it which have even a shadow of probability on their side; or, instead of denouncing real and serious evils, to the presentment of waggons overthrown and suffocating court-houses. The lawyers were seen flitting about the streets; the usual morning consultations and evening revels took place: witnesses and jurymen crowded the inns; an enormous quantity of bad port, bad sherry, and worse madeira, was consumed; and solicitors merited well the simile applied by sailors to personages who are peculiarly busy.