neither have I said anything of my discovery to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, 'Least said soonest mended.' I heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten to town, sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his health. We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs. Beaufort's health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort's delicacy very inconvenient, especially in moving about and in keeping up one's county connexions. A young man's health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear of your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late years: Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the more I am astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that fellow--to defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite right,--certainly a conspiracy. "Yours truly, "R. B." "P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers. "Burn this immediately." After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed and slept soundly. And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to be ratified or annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled? Had the characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record? There is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old Grave- digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find burial- places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the ashes of some long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of some new-perished Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies none,--for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the hectic that consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre, there is thy temple, O melancholy Time!