ed the following words:

"After a night of such suffering as casts all I have
previously endured into the shade, I address you. My
mother now lies before me in that heavy and death-like
sleep which follows utter exhaustion. Her state of
health for the last month has demanded my constant
care, and the precarious remuneration I have been able
to obtain for sewing, I have thus been compelled to
give up. We have parted with every souvenir of our
better days--even our clothing has been sacrificed,
until we have but a change of garments left; and now
our landlady insists on being paid the small sum we owe
her, or we must leave her house to-day. She came into
our room last evening, and the scene which ensued threw
my mother into such a state of nervous excitement, that
she has not yet recovered from it.

"I cannot disguise from myself that she is very ill. If
she awakes to a renewal of the same anguish, I dare not
contemplate the consequences. You know that I do not
love you, Mr. Barclay. I make no pretension to a change
in my feelings; repugnant as it must be to a heart of
sensibility, I must view this transaction as a matter
of bargain and sale. I will accept your late offer, to
save my mother from further suffering, and to gain a
home for her declining years.

"For myself, I will endeavor to be to you--but why
should I promise any thing for myself. God alone can
give me strength to live after the sacrifice is
completed.

"EDITH."

There was much in this letter that was wounding to his vanity, and
bitter to his feelings; but he had triumphed! The stately pride of
this girl was humbled before him--her spirit bowed in the dust before
the gaunt spectre she had thought herself capable of braving. She
would be his--the fair, the pure in heart, would link herself to vice,
infamy and crime, for money. Money! the world's god! See the countless
millions groveling upon the earth before the great idol--the golden
calf, which so often brings with it as bitter a curse as was denounced
against the people of old, when they forsook the living and true God
for its worship.

Can it not buy every thing--even woman's love, or the semblance of it,
which would serve him just as well? He, the murderer of the brother,
would purchase the compliance of