Clouds roll over the sky; the large rain drops descend; the lightning flashes; the thunder rolls along the verge of heaven; darkness and tempests rage above; and ruin and desolation seem to reign below. They have their hour, and pass away. Often the clouds roll on to some distant bourn, leaving the sky clear, the sun smiling brighter than ever, the blades of grass gemmed with the diamond drops, the earth all fresh, and the birds all singing. But there are other times, when, although the fierceness of the tempest is over, the streaming deluge suspended, the torch of the lightning quenched, and the angry voice of the thunder hushed, a heavy boding cloud remains behind, hiding the brightness of the face of heaven, and threatening fresh storms to come. Thus it is too with the human heart. In the spring-tide of our life--in those gay early years, when the merry rays of the sunshiny heart dance gleam-like with the storms and clouds of life, the tempest of passion or of sorrow is soon swept away, and the universe of the heart resumes its brightness. But there comes a time when the storm falling upon life's decline--I speak not of mere years, but at the epoch of each man's destined change--the spirit cannot cast off the shadow of the cloud, even when the eyes are dried, and the lightning pang of anguish or the terror speaking thunder of retribution are staid for the hour. Thus was it with Richard. His son, his only son, his beloved, was gone. The fountain of hope and expectation was dried up. For him, and for his future, destiny, he had laboured, and thought, and striven, and calculated, and sinned, and offended God and man, and won a dark and fearful renown, tainted a mother's fame, violated trust and friendship, usurped the patrimony of the orphan, spurned every tie of nature and affection, trampled upon gratitude, and imbrued his hands in blood. Strange that the brightest and the purest of human affections, when mingled in our nature with the darker and the more violent passions, instead of mitigating their influence, should prompt to deeper crimes, and plunge us into more overwhelming guiltiness--as the most precious medicines, mingled chemically with some foreign matter, will, is a moment, become the most dangerous poisons. He was gone; the object of all his fond imaginings, his daily labours and his nightly thoughts. The hopes that had been built up upon his life were all thrown down. The line between the present and the future was snapped asunder. The pang had been suffered--the terrible pang of the rending of a strong manly heart from its closest ties and its dearest expectations. The effect had been awful, terrible. It had for a time unseated reason from a throne where she had ruled with sway almost despotic. But that pang had been conquered. Reason had regained her rule. The tempest of the heart had passed away, and had left the sky calm--but not bright. No! Dull, dull, heavy, leaden, threatening, was the aspect of all around.