sons. But they highly disapproved them, because, though Edgar's dreadful death was not likely to be revealed to him in the little village of R, it might be disclosed to him by some one or other during a long journey. However, as he was bent on going, they could not find a sufficient excuse for preventing it; but they took every precaution possible. They wrote to their father's intended host, desiring him to keep all papers and magazines for the last seven months out of his way; and when the day of his departure arrived, Osborne himself went to take a place for him; and took care it should be in that coach which did not stop at, or go through York, in order to obviate all possible chance of his hearing the murder discussed. But it so happened that a family, going from the town whence the coach started, wanted the whole of it; and, without leave, Vernon's place was transferred to the other coach, which went the very road Osborne disapproved. "Well, well; it is the same thing to me;" said the good old man, when he was informed of the change; and he set off, full of pious thankfulness for the affectionate conduct and regrets of his parishioners at the moment of his departure, as they lined the road along which the coach was to pass, and expressed even clamorously their wishes for his return. The coach stopped at an inn out-side the city of York; and as Vernon was not disposed to eat any dinner, he strolled along the road, till he came to a small church, pleasantly situated, and entered the church-yard to read, as was his custom, the inscriptions on the tombstones. While thus engaged, he saw a man filling up a new-made grave, and entered into conversation with him. found it was the sexton himself; and he drew He from him several anecdotes of the persons interred around them. During this conversation they had walked over the whole of the ground, when, just as they were going to leave the spot, the sexton stopped to pluck some weeds from a grave near the corner of it, and Vernon stopped also; taking hold, as he did so, of a small willow sapling, planted near the corner itself. " of As the man-rose from his occupation, and saw where Vernon stood, he smiled significantly, and said, "I planted that willow; and it is on a grave, though the grave is not marked out."-" Indeed!" -"Yes; it is the grave of a murderer."-" Of a murderer !"-echoed Vernon, instinctively shuddering and moving away from it. -" Yes," resumed he, a murderer who was hanged at York. Poor lad! it was very right that he should be hanged; but he was not a hardened villain ! and he died so penitent! and, as I knew him when he used to visit where I was groom, I could not help planting this tree, for old acquaintance sake." Here he drew his hand across his eyes. " Then he was not a low-born man." "Oh no; his father was a clergyman, I think."-"Indeed! poor man: was he living at the time?" said Vernon, deeply sighing. "Oh yes; for his poor son did so fret, lest his father should ever know what he had done; for he said he was an angel upon earth; and he could not bear to think how he would grieve; for, poor lad, he loved his father and mother too, though he did so badly."-" Is his mother living?"-" No; if she had, he would have been alive; but his evil courses broke her heart; and it was because the man he killed reproached him for having murdered his mother, that he was provoked to murder him."-" Poor, rash, mistaken youth! then he had provocation." -"Oh yes; the greatest: but he was very sorry for what he had done and it would have broken your heart to hear him talk of his poor father."-" I am glad I did not hear him," said Vernon hastily, and in a faltering voice (for he thought of Edgar.) "And yet, sir, it would have done your heart good too." -" Then he had virtuous feelings, and loved his father amidst all his errors?"-" Aye."-" And I dare say his father loved him, in spite of his faults."- " I dare say he did," replied the man; "for one's children are our own flesh and blood, you know, sir, after all that is said and done; and may be this young fellow was spoiled in the bringing up."-" Perhaps so," said Vernon, sighing deeply. "However, this poor lad made a very good end."—" І am glad of that! and he lies here," continued Vernon, gazing on the spot with deepening interest, and moving nearer to it as he spoke. "Peace be to his soul! but was he not dissected?” "Yes; but his brothers got leave to have the body after dissection. They came to me; and we buried it privately at night."-" His brothers came! and who were his brothers?"-" Merchants in London; and it was a sad cut on them; but they took care that their father should not know it."-" No!" cried Vernon, turning sick at heart. "Oh no; they wrote him word that his son was ill; then went to Westmoreland, and " .-" Tell me," interrupted Vernon, gasping for breath, and laying his hand on his arm, "tell me the name of this poor youth!""Why, he was tried under a false name, for the sake of his family; but his real name was Edgar Vernon!" The agonized parent drew back, shuddered violently and repeatedly, casting his eyes to heaven at the same time, with a look of mingled appeal and resignation. He then rushed to the obscure spot which covered the bones of his son, threw himself upon it, and stretched his arms over it, as if embracing the unconscious deposit beneath, while his head rested on the grass, and he neither spoke nor moved. But he uttered one groan; then all was stillness ! His terrified and astonished companion remained motionless for a few moments, then stooped to raise him; but the FIAT OF MERCY had gone forth, and the paternal heart, broken by the sudden shock, had suffered, and breathed its last. CHAPTER XI. LIES OF WANTONNESS. I COME now to LIES OF WANTONNESS; that is, lies told from no other motive but a love of lying, and to show the utterer's total contempt of truth, and for those scrupulous persons of their acquaintance who look on it with reverence, and endeavour to act up to their principles: lies, having their origin merely in a depraved fondness for speaking and inventing falsehood. Not that persons of this description confine their falsehoods to this sort of lying: on the contrary, they lie after this fashion, because they have exhausted the strongly-motived and more natural sorts of lying. In such as these, there is no more hope of amendment than there is for the man of intemperate habits, who has exhausted life of its pleas ures, and his constitution of its energy. Such per sons must go despised and (terrible state of hu man degradation!) untrusted, unbelieved, into their graves. PRACTICAL LIES come last on my list; lies not UTTERED, but ACTED; and dress will furnish me with most of my illustrations. It has been said that the great art of dress is to CONCEAL DEFECTS and HEIGHTEN BEAUTIES; there fore, as concealment is deception, this great art of dress is founded on falsehood; but, certainly, in some instances, on falsehood, comparatively, of a.. innocent kind. If the false hair be so worn, that no one can fancy it natural; if the bloom on the cheek is such, that it cannot be mistaken for nature; or, if the person who " conceals defects, and heightens beauties," openly avows the practice, then is the deception annihilated. But, if the cheek be so artfully tinted, that its hue is mistaken for natural colour; if the false hair be so skilfully woven, that it passes for natural hair; if the crooked person, or meagre form, be so cunningly assisted by dress, that the uneven shoulder disappears, and becoming fulness succeeds to unbecoming thinness, while the man or woman thus assisted by art expects their charms will be imputed to nature alone; then these aids of dress partake of the nature of other lying, and become equally vicious in the eyes of the religious and the moral. I have said, the man or woman so assisted by art; and I believe that, by including the stronger sex in the above observation, I have only been strictly just. While men hide baldness by gluing a piece of |