d dreamed the preceding night that it had
been accepted; he had dreamed it had brought him showers of gold; he had
been for a moment happy beyond the bounds of human happiness, though he
had awoke with a sense of horror on his mind, he knew not why. The
publisher to whom he had sent his tragedy was to present it to the
manager of one of the London theatres. Had it been taken, performed,
successful?--a dream of glory, as if heaven had opened on him,
bewildered his senses.

The door was rudely pushed open; his mother entered, and flung the
manuscript of the returned tragedy on the table.

"There--there's another of them!" she cried, rage choked her voice for a
moment.

Andrew was stunned. Despair seemed to have frozen him all at once into a
statue. He mechanically took up the packet, and, opening it, he read the
cold, polite, brief note, which told of the rejection of his play both
by theatres and publishers.

"Idiot--fool--scribbling fool!"

The unfortunate poet's mother sank into a chair, as if unable to support
the force of her anger.

"Fool!--scribbling madman! will ye never give over?"

Andrew made no answer; but every one of his mother's furious words sank
into his brain, adding to the force of his unutterable misery.

"Will ye go now, and take to some other trade, will ye?--will ye, I
say?"

Andrew's lips moved for a moment, but no sound came from them.

"Will ye go out, and make money, I say, at some sensible work? Make
money for me, will you? I'll force you out to make money at some work by
which there's money to be made; not the like of that idiot writing of
yours, curse it. Answer me, and tell me you'll go out and work for money
now?"

She seized his arm, and shook it violently; but still he made no
response.

"You will not speak. Listen, then--listen to me, I say; I'll tell it all
now; you'll hear what you never heard before. I did not tell you before,
because I pitied you--because I thought you would work for me, and earn
money; but you will not promise it. Now, then, listen. You are the very
child of money--brought into existence by the influence of money; you
would never have been in being had it not been for money. I always told
you I was married to your father; I told you a falsehood--he bound me to
him by the ties of money only."

A violent shudder passed over Andrew's frame at this intelligence, but
still he said nothing.

"You shall hear it all--I shall tell you particularly the whol