his profession. His brilliant achievement in the famous Jenkins
case, in the outset of his career, had at once won for him a position
at the bar which most young men have to toil years to obtain. His
family was wealthy and influential. It was not strange that with these
advantages, united to the possession of remarkable personal beauty, he
should be the centre of a numerous group of friends and admirers. He
was the object of pride among the older barristers and gentlemen of
the bench, the cynosure of the young men, and the one among a thousand
whom elegant mammas and smiling maidens wooed with their selectest
influences.

Yet one great element of earthly happiness was wanting to his life. He
could not forget the enchantment of those days spent in the far-off
wilds of Miramichi. He turned continually to those scenes, as the most
prominent of his existence. There he had stepped from boyhood into
manhood. There he had seen life in new and before untried forms. He
had there witnessed a wonderful display of God's power through the
terrible agency of the all-devouring flame, and there, for the first
time, he had confronted death and sorrow. There, he had loved once and
as he believed, forever. He recalled Adele, as she first appeared
before him,--an unexpected vision of beauty, in all her careless grace
and sweet, confiding frankness; in her moments of stately pride, when
she chilled him from her side and kept him afar off; and in her
moments of affectionate kindness, and generous enthusiasm. In short,
in all her changeful moods she was daily flitting before him and he
confessed to himself, that he had never met a being so rich in nature
and varied in powers, so noble in impulse and purpose, so peerlessly
beautiful in person.

Thus he lived on from day to day, remembering and yearning and
dreaming,--the ocean yawning between him and his love. Concealed in
the depths of his soul, there was, however, a hope fondly cherished,
and a purpose half formed.

A few weeks after the reception of Mr. Norton's letter, the Count de
Rossillon died. Sitting, as usual, in his great purple-cushioned
arm-chair, taking his afternoon nap, he expired so gently that Mrs.
Dubois, who was reading by the window, did not know, or even suspect,
when the parting between spirit and body occurred. Kindly, genial, and
peaceful had been his last years, and his life went out calmly as the
light of day goes out amid the mellow tints of a pleasant autumn
su