The time arrived when it was impossible for William to be suffered any longer to remain in his charge. He was thrust out of his church, and expelled from the ministry. The messenger who delivered this message to him, delivered it to one more dead than alive. His excesses had at length brought on a fit of apoplexy; he was but partially recovered from it, and could only, in a dim manner, comprehend the purport of the message, when, with his wife and children, he was removed from the manse. A friend sheltered him for a time--afterwards he was conveyed over to Edinburgh. Within a twelvemonth he died, having been chained down to bed by his disease, one-half of his frame being dead, with mind enough to see poverty and inevitable misery ready to crush his helpless family, but without the power to use the slightest exertion in order to avert the impending calamity. It was in a garret in the High Street, upon rotten straw, the spectacle of an emaciated and shattered wife before his eyes, and the cries of his starving children sounding in his ears, that William Riddell breathed his last! What availed it then that he had been good and pure, full of generous sentiments, endowed with a graceful person, a noble genius, and a manly eloquence? These otherwise invaluable qualities had been all sunk or scattered by the spendthrift extravagances of the Social Man. It is now about five years ago, since, as we were hurrying past Cassels Place, at the foot of Leith Walk, we were attracted by a crowd who had gathered round a poor intoxicated woman. She had fallen beneath the wheel of a waggon, and both her legs were crushed in a terrible manner. As two or three assistants carried her past a gas-light towards the nearest house, we were struck by the resemblance--hideous, indeed, and bloated--which her features wore to some one whom we had known. We inquired her history, and, to our horror, discovered that this was indeed Ellen Ogilvie--the widow of our poor friend, William Riddell. It was useless attempting to save her; her vital energies were sinking rapidly beneath the injuries which she had received. She revived a little from the effect of some wine which we gave her, and began incoherently to speak of her past life. "You see me here, sir," said she, "a poor, wretched, degraded creature:--I was not always thus. There was not a happier heart in wide Scotland than mine was, ten years ago. But my husband, sir, was a Social Man!" A convulsive sob checked her words--her head sank back on the pillow--her lower jaw fell--the death-rattle sounded in her throat--and in a few moments the unfortunate woman expired. THE TWO COMRADES.