nd so little obtrusive that they seldom or never provoke
the attention of his more fortunate neighbors. As with the rivulet that
can neither float a barque nor turn a mill-wheel none meddles, so with
the course of these lowly lives few concern themselves, and they ripple
along unheeded. Many and many a time had the old minister hugged this
thought to his heart,--many and many a time had he felt that there
were cares and troubles in this life so proud and so haughty that they
disdained the thatched cabin and the humble roof-tree, but loved to push
their way through crowds of courtiers up marble stairs and along gilded
corridors. It was then with a perfect shock that he came to learn that
even they, in all their lowliness, could claim no exemption from common
calamity. The letter began by stating that the writer, before putting
pen to paper, had waited till Miss Stewart should have reached her home,
so that no anxieties as to her health should be added to the pain the
communication might cause. After this louring commencement the epistle
went on to state that the satisfaction which Dolly had at first given
by her general good temper and strict attention to her duties,
"compensating in a great measure for the defects in her own education
and want of aptitude as a teacher," soon ceased to be experienced, as
it was found that she was subject to constant intervals of great
depression, and even whole days, when she seemed scarcely equal to her
duties. The cause was not very long a secret.

It was an attachment she had formed to a brother of Mr. M'Gruder's,
who, some years younger than himself, had been established in Italy as a
partner, and had now come over to England on business.

It was not necessary to say that the writer had never encouraged this
sentiment; on the contrary, she had more than remonstrated with her
brother-in-law on the score of his attentions, and flatly declared that,
if he persisted, she would do her utmost to have the partnership with
his brother dissolved, and all future intercourse at an end between
them. This led to scenes of a very violent nature, in which she was
obliged to own her husband had the cruelty to take his brother's side
against her, and avow that Samuel was earning his own bread, and if he
liked to share it with an "untochcred lassie," it should be far from
him, Robert M'Grader, that any reproach should come,--a sarcasm that
Mrs. M'Grader seemed keenly to appreciate.

The agitation ca