"Mastor's not come," he observed, laconically. "No, I wish I had returned in time, yesterday, to see him before he went, to have taken the key of my room," said Fisher, who did not like the indignity of parading with the messenger to amuse the clerks in the offices opposite.

At this moment a livery servant brought a sealed packet, addressed to Fisher, who, on opening it, found the keys. Delivering himself with speed from his disagreeable circumstances, he soon by the messenger's help got a brisk fire burning; and then having arranged the great man's chair, desk, and table, proceeded to his own work.

The revelations which Cordell Firebrace had made, coupled with the behaviour and speech of Baldwick, had sorely perplexed him, but so strong was his confidence in the perfect infallibility of his master, that the doubts which had been raised, doubts without any precise form, had vanished with the yesterday's fog. Mr. Firebrace might be in a mistake, though it seemed impossible, but Mr. Case could not be wrong that was impossible. While he was at work, occasionally listening for the great man's step, the messenger knocked at the door," Mr. Fisher?

"Well," said Fisher, in a tone of authority, for he felt it incumbent on him to represent the majesty of the office when majesty itself was absent. "Do you know what they say?" asked the messenger.

"What who say?" inquired Fisher.

"Why, the gentlemen opposite. Ned Gibbins tells me (him as goes messages for 'em) there's ever such a fuss in the city, the house of Brisk and Brittle is gone."

"Did the gentlemen opposite tell Ned Gibbins? inquired Fisher, superciliously, imitating Mr. Case's manner of receiving startling intelligence.

"Can't say for that," said the messenger, much offended, and going off after Ned for more news.

"I wonder if it's true," said Fisher to himself when he was gone. "Well, I thought they were as safe as the bank; I wonder what they got wrong in," and he referred to various documents, to ascertain so far as he could whether there were any business relations between the defunct house of Brisk and Brittle and his master.

He had a divided feeling about Mr. Case's long absence from the office, though he occasionally looked with an anxious interest at the steady-going dial as he warmed his hands or mended a pen. He was glad he was not there, for he felt that however Cordell Firebrace might clear his conduct, he would not do away with the impression that he was inefficient and untrustworthy. He knew very well that Mr. Case judged for himself, and he dreaded the first freezing look of contempt that would most probably greet him when the great man condescended to look at him at all.

"But let things be as bad as they may be, or can be, they are best over; I like to know the worst, whatever it is;" this he also felt, and he continued vibrating like the pendulum between the two evils. Every step in the entry sent the blood to his cheek, yet it was with somewhat of disappointment that he heard one after another die away in another direction.

But leaving him in this uncertainty, we will go with Cordell Firebrace and Anthony King to the house of Mr. Case, which they reached at eight o'clock in the morning.

The servant that answered to their summons, said that he believed his master had not yet called his valet. "We will wait," said Cordell; "I thought Mr. Case was a very early man."

The footman did not approve of such very inferior people (pedestrians at so untimely an hour) expressing their thoughts of his master's personal qualifications, so he merely repeated that he was not stirring, and recommended them to call again.

"No," said Cordell, "we wish to see Mr. Case before he goes to his office; take up these cards."

The tone in which he spoke, and his evident intention to make good his wish, gained them an entrance, and they were shown into an ante-room commanding the hall.

They did not wait long; Mr. Case had summoned his servant, though the lacquey had not chosen to admit it, and he saw the cards, and sent down a message to the effect that he never spoke on business except at the office.

"We prefer to wait," said Cordell, coolly and resolutely; and they did wait, though informed that they would not have an interview with Mr. Case in that house.

"I think we had better go, Cordell," said Anthony; "it is taking a liberty which I cannot defend to force an interview here; let us go and wait for him at his office."

"We may go, and we may wait for him, but we shan't see him if we do," said Cordell. "I know what he is about, he is trying to gain time. Leave me alone, Tony, I am right; you may make a gross of apologies when I have done the work, and more too, if you like, but don't hinder me, that's a good fellow; don't shake him off the hook when he's so close to bite."

Anthony was compelled to submit, but how long that hour seemed! Cordell even grew angry, and could not restrain some bitter words.

"Poor old man!" said Anthony, "he is not to be envied."

"He's a dead rogue," said Cordell, bluntly.

"He is an excellent illustration of what Solomon says," said Anthony, whose thoughts constantly fell back upon his favourite book. "He hath set the world in their heart,' so worldly wise, so worldly prosperous, he cannot find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.""

"Where is that?" asked Cordell; "is that in the Bible?"

"Why, in Ecclesiastes," said Anthony.

"Come now," said Cordell, "if you were to give the old man upstairs a little of that after our business is over, it might do him good.”

And truly there was many a verse in that same book of The Preacher which had its appropriate warning. For instance, the last verse of the second chapter: "God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God."

"I tell you what, Tony," said his impatient friend, this won't do, we must come to an understanding with him; if he means to keep us, we must have a fire to sit by, for it is too cold without one." Whereupon he went into the hall, and was nearly knocked down by a servant who rushed by him, another passing at the same time, and signs of great confusion becoming more and more evident.

"What's the matter?" asked Cordell; but there

was no one to answer. Every one seemed to be upstairs. He made a survey of all below where he could penetrate, and found in the servants' hall, as he concluded it to be, a noble fire and an ample breakfast, which seemed to have been deserted in some haste from the derangement apparent.

His foot was on the stairs. He thought he would try that expedient, but he was arrested by the rattle of wheels, the door flew open, and the servant who had passed him so distractedly before, came in, accompanied by the doctor whom Mr. Case had called upon in the fashionable square not far from his own residence. Cordell stood by as they hastily ran up the staircase; he had not many more minutes of suspense, the doctor came down looking very grave. "I'm afraid Mr. Case is ill?" he said, as the physician advanced.

"Mr. Case, sir, I am grieved to say, has been dead some minutes," said the physician, solemnly. Cordell shuddered.

"I warned him not to trifle with himself yesterday. I was afraid he would suffer from his neglect, but I did not anticipate so speedy a result as this."

Anthony had remained in the ante-room reading while Cordell had been thus engaged, and was ignorant of all that had transpired. When he saw Cordell's face on his return to him, he looked with wonder for an explanation.

"Dead!" said Cordell. "Dead! dead in a moment! How horrible!" He turned away as he spoke, too much occupied with what he had just heard to take an interest in any other subject. As they left the house they met the banker who had dined there the night before. He seemed so preoccupied with serious thoughts, that they fancied at first he must already have heard of what had occurred, but Anthony paused for a moment to observe him, and felt sure, from the careless manner in which he approached the door, though his face wore an anxious expression, that he was yet in ignorance of the truth. "You will probably not receive any attention just now, sir," he said. "The house is in entire confusion, occasioned by the sudden death of Mr. Case." "Death! sudden death! Mr. Case dead?" cried the banker, almost breathless with surprise.

"It is true, sir, quite true. We have but now left the house," said Anthony.

"Why, I dined here last night; he was well, in great spirits a little absent now and then, butdead? When did he die? how did it happen?"

All these queries and remarks succeeded each other with great rapidity; the banker was evidently in much consternation.

Anthony could only repeat what he had said, adding, "I was waiting with a friend to see him, on very particular business, or I should not have been here. The servants seem to be too much panic-stricken to give an account of more than the awful fact."

"Ah yes! very true," said the banker; "particular business, did you say? May I ask (you will pardon me for it, but I am deeply interested in the question), are you from the firm of Brisk and Brittle?"

"I never heard of that firm," said Anthony, shocked by the heartless tone of his companion, and adding, with some warmth: "He has, at any rate, done with this world now; without an hour's warning he has entered the great court where all are bankrupts and will be cast that have not their Judge for their Advocate. I hope this will show us the madness of living unprepared for eternity."

"Ah yes; I hope so, indeed," said the banker. "You are right; but the truth is, my dear sir, I have just heard that Mr. Case, who had money transactions with me only yesterday, was very much involved in the affairs of that firm, and you cannot wonder that I should feel anxious. I suppose-there was no idea-you didn't hear-it was a natural death? was it?"

For fears grew out of doubts that the deceased had, through pressure of anxiety, laid hands on himself.

"I know no more, sir, than I have told you," replied Anthony, turning to follow Cordell, for he was too much disgusted by the selfish coldness of the banker to be able to command himself, and he felt sure that to level darts at a heart so cased in worldliness would be like trying to pierce steel with feathers.

"Yet will an arrow sometimes find its way through the joints of the harness," he thought as he sought his friend, half repentant that he had not remained and tried to speak a word or two of honest rebuke.

But the banker had one idea in his head, and one desire in his heart-the idea that he might lose money, the desire that he might not; and there was not a hair's-breadth opening for any other idea or desire just then in either.

The abbé and Kezia awaited the return of their friends with great interest. The abbé had dressed himself with some of his former care, and looked really, but for a slight feebleness now and then evident, quite as in old days.

Kezia sat knitting, and pondering, between the pauses in the conversation, over her future movements.

"I shall hear of something, no doubt of that. 1 might live upon my little means, to be sure, but I'd rather be employed, and save a penny to help those that want it."

This was her remark to the abbé, who asked her what she was thinking about, after a longer pause than usual.

"It is a great wisdom, dat," said the abbé; "it is a happiness to make happy oder people. If I make again my money, I hope I will do dat."

"Oh, yes, but you did save, you know, for your sister and brother," said Kezia.

"Ah!" said the abbé, with a sigh, "I say it, I save for dem, but I wanted to go back to my country. I love my country," and his hand rested on his heart, and tears filled his eyes.

"So does every good man," said Kezia, kindly. "Look at the Romans and the Grecians and the ancient Britons; why, they'd all of them go through fire and water for their country. Who was that man that said he'd rather be a nobody in his own land than a 'peer or a palandine,' as the poet says, in another?"

Kezia's history and other literary attainments, whenever she fired them off at the abbé, filled him with perplexity,-she seldom made an allusion so clear in all its parts that he could understand it.

But she did not wait for his answer. Having consulted her pattern once more, that she might form the heel she was knitting aright, she continued, "I really must get up my reading, one forgets so fast; but even the Jews, though they were so hard-hearted and every way wicked, when they were in a strange country made that psalm that's enough to make any tender heart cry with them; don't you remember? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a

strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.'

"Yes, yes, it is true," replied the abbé, "I have been reading dat psalm one night, and tink of beautiful France-my country."

"Now mun-sir," said Kezia, who did not like her patient to get into this strain, "I will say a beautiful piece on love of country; it begins-"

"Ah, dey come ! dere is Monsieur Antoine, and dey look down; it is a bad news dey bring," said the abbé, who had taken refuge at the window for amusement on Kezia's announcement of a piece, and saw his friends slowly crossing the street.

Their looks betrayed that they had no ordinary tale to tell, yet the truth briefly told greatly shocked their hearers.

The abbé silently lifted his hands; Kezia, immediately after the first surprise had passed, cried, "Oh, my poor Cousin King!"

speaken it to me tree, four time, what you have say, I will learn to speaken it in English."

Kezia was delighted, and repeated sentence after sentence till he could say it all.

"It is good, ver good," he exclaimed, "but I cannot tell if I know it all here," laying his hand on his heart; "but I can say, 'Bless de Lord,' and I hope he has forgive my iniquities; den, oh den, my two tousand pound truly is noting, and when I die I cannot lose my good ting-it is better to have what can never be take away; de bank of heaven can never be breaken."

THE NEW WORLD AND THE OLD: AMERICAN ILLUSTRATIONS OF EUROPEAN ANTIQUITIES. BY PRINCIPAL DAWSON, LL.D., MONTREAL. XI.-ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

"that she may not hear it suddenly, poor thing. She will grow old now, I fancy."

"And I," said Cordell, 'must now place our affairs in the best hands I can, since all hope of arriving at the right by the good leave of that old man is gone."

So," exclaimed the abbé to Kezia, when both had left them, "he is dead, dat poor man who come to me one day-what you call him?"

"Mr. Case," said Kezia.

"You are not ver grieve?" inquired the abbé, struck by her unsympathising tone.

"I am very much shocked, very much, but as to grieved-why, all I am sorry for is Miss King," said Kezia.

"But it is not Miss King who has died!" remarked the abbé, in a tone of remonstrance.

"No, but she was so wrapped up in him, I verily believe she thought she could not live without him,' said Kezia.

"But she shall live widout him, and den she will see it her mistake," said the abbé.

"Ah! it is easy, you know, to see the end of other people's troubles," said Kezia, whose kind heart was really touched for her Cousin King's misfortune.

"Yes, yes, mees, I know dat ver well; I know dat you see de end of my two tousand pound, and say to me, 'Forget it, it is same to be in de bank and not in de bank,' dat is what you tell me."

66

Ah, but I was very sorry for you," said Kezia; "but oh, munshoo" (she always fell back into her French misdemeanours when her feelings were excited), "just think! what would a hundred times two thousand pounds do for that poor man now? I dare say he had that and more, but you see it has been all taken from him in a moment-yes, and his life with it."

The abbé was silent, but he felt very strongly the mercy of having been spared and raised up to life again. The loss of his money seemed to him, in the strength of his feelings, really" as a dust" compared with this grace, angry as he had once been with the comparison.

Mees," he said, after a short silence, "I wish you would read to me that beautiful psalm you have often say to me, 'Bless de Lord!'"

"The hundred and third," said Kezia, starting up with alacrity," that I will," and she began at once, the abbé listening with the deepest attention. When she had finished the fifth verse, he said, "Will you

duration of the human period in America. If we were to accept without question the statements which have been made as to the finding of flint implements and a human skull in the ancient gold gravels of California, we might carry back the human occupancy of America even into the Pliocene age, or further than any authentic remains have yet carried it in Europe. But these reports so require confirmation that we cannot rest on them. The same remark may be made with regard to the discovery of implements and human bones in those more modern estuarine and lacustrine deposits in which the bones of the mastodon are entombed, though a sufficient number of probable indications appear to make it not unlikely that man had reached America before the disappearance of the mastodon. If so, there was an ancient American population little known to us, and coeval with the oldest cave-men of Europe, and who possibly, like these old cave-men, may have been swept away before the advent of the more modern races. It is remarkable, however, that some of the indications relied on as evidence of this early race, would go to show a degree of culture equal to that of the more civilised modern tribes. Of this kind are the beautiful polished plummet or ornament found by Grimes in the California gravel, and the baskets and pottery described by Hilgard and Fontaine from the salt-beds of Petite Anse. To the same effect is the fact stated by Professor Wyman, that the Calaveros skull from the gravels of California is of the ordinary American type and rather larger in cranial capacity than those of the modern Indians of the same region. In the more northern part of America no remains whatever have been found to connect man with any of those terraces and raised beaches which mark the elevation of the land out of the glacial seas.

The actual American race can make no monumental pretensions to a great antiquity, for its oldest remains, those of the ancient Alleghan nations, situated as they are on the modern alluvium of the western rivers, claim no greater antiquity than the similar mounds on the banks of the Tigris, and possibly are much less ancient. The languages, customs, and religions of the Americans, as well as their physical characters, are allied to those of Postdiluvian nations of the Old World, and though they indicate migrations belonging to an early part of the historical period, while the Turanian race was still dominant, go no further back than this. The