daughter's emotion, as she covered her dead brother's face with tears and kisses, stirred the parent within him, and his eyes clouded and cold features relaxed. * * * * * Another funeral, another solemn procession to the tolling of the bell of St. Jude's, and the body of John Peter Heath was laid beside that of his grandsire in the family vault, in the yard of the little church. XII. Six months passed away. The young widow had left Belton, which had never possessed any charms for her, to visit her maternal relatives in the island of Cuba. It was doubtless a relief, as she had never known any happiness during her wedded life. Her departure increased the sense of loneliness that pervaded her former home, for it now seemed enveloped in an atmosphere of gloom. Mr. Heath was rigid in all the observances of mourning. The entrance gates to his grounds, which were formerly always kept hospitably wide open, were now as constantly closed, and the domestics wore black. As for Mr. Heath, he had lapsed into a singular state of taciturnity, and sought seclusion. It was evident that he no longer possessed the energetic and elastic spirit of his younger days. Then disappointment would have spurred him to increased exertion, but now the repeated blows dealt at him by destiny and the approach of old age, though hardly perceptible in his still erect and vigorous frame, were telling on the springs of action. There are periods in a man's existence when he pauses to review his life. It is true such periods rarely occur to the slaves of vice, or to those under the dominion of a ruling passion, and perhaps never to the robust individual of limited ideas to whom the mere act of existing is a pleasure; but they come repeatedly to the free intellect, perhaps at the very instant of realization of some long toiled-for or expected success, or at the moment of disappointment, to ask it what it is living for, and whither it tends? Such questions never enter the head of men like old John Peter Obershaw, nor disturb the tough self-satisfaction of those like George Gildersleeve; but the texture of Mr. Heath's mind, when at rest, was impressionable, and its subtle energy liable to relax and weaken. We have related how he succumbed to despondency on his succession to the immense wealth of his father-in-law, and although this feeling was soon shaken off and banished in the pursuit of ambitious projects, it now returned as the blight on his ambition, and death of his only son pressed the iron through a heart enamelled by worldliness. As time wore on, his sorrow, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase, and an expression of deep chagrin settled permanently on his countenance. He apparently lost all interest in his great work, the "Federal Code," and the secretary who had assisted him in its preparation was dismissed. He seldom left the house now, spending his time chiefly in the library engaged in meditation, or in the occasional