ome back to Godesberg, where she was reconciled to
her husband. Jealous of her daughter-in-law, she idolized her son,
and spoiled all her little grandchildren. And so all are happy, and my
simple tale is done.

I read it in an old, old book, in a mouldy old circulating library.
'Twas written in the French tongue, by the noble Alexandre Dumas; but
'tis probable that he stole it from some other, and that the other had
filched it from a former tale-teller. For nothing is new under the sun.
Things die and are reproduced only. And so it is that the forgotten tale
of the great Dumas reappears under the signature of

THERESA MACWHIRTER.

WHISTLEBINKIE, N.B., December 1.

REBECCA AND ROWENA.

A ROMANCE UPON ROMANCE.

BY MR. MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH.

CHAPTER I.

THE OVERTURE.--COMMENCEMENT OF THE BUSINESS.

Well-beloved novel-readers and gentle patronesses of romance, assuredly
it has often occurred to every one of you, that the books we delight
in have very unsatisfactory conclusions, and end quite prematurely with
page 320 of the third volume. At that epoch of the history it is well
known that the hero is seldom more than thirty years old, and the
heroine by consequence some seven or eight years younger; and I would
ask any of you whether it is fair to suppose that people after the above
age have nothing worthy of note in their lives, and cease to exist as
they drive away from Saint George's, Hanover Square? You, dear young
ladies, who get your knowledge of life from the circulating library, may
be led to imagine that when the marriage business is done, and Emilia
is whisked off in the new travelling-carriage, by the side of the
enraptured Earl; or Belinda, breaking away from the tearful embraces
of her excellent mother, dries her own lovely eyes upon the throbbing
waistcoat of her bridegroom--you may be apt, I say, to suppose that all
is over then; that Emilia and the Earl are going to be happy for the
rest of their lives in his lordship's romantic castle in the North, and
Belinda and her young clergyman to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in their
rose-trellised parsonage in the West of England: but some there be among
the novel-reading classes--old experienced folks--who know better than
this. Some there be who have been married, and found that they have
still something to see and to do, and to suffer mayhap; and that
adventures, and pains, and pleasures, and taxes, and sunrises and
settings, and the business