endearing names, which sounded heartful,
passionate, tender, after the lapse of more than a
quarter of a century; but I presently found
myself doubting whether this " sweet Anne
Cardigan" had in reality been quite worthy of the
ardent love shed upon her. I learned our uncle's
early struggles from certain passages of this
correspondence. He was a small-salaried clerk
at Mr. Parkinson's, and lived with his sister in
indifferent lodgings, where she had a garden
"three feet deep and seven feet long on the leads
outside her window, and an uncommon show of
flowers she has raised, I can tell you, Miss Quiz,
though we have not such pure air as blows over
your blessed nest." In the midst of his tenderer
protestations the lover continually urged his fast
improving prospects, and predicted that some
day he should be rich enough to " deck his
delight in diamonds and cloth of gold, if her vain
little heart coveted such sumptuosities." From
often-recurring allusions I was led to conjecture
that this exacting maiden was possessed of a
bewildering beauty, and of a vanity that craved
much incense of admiration and flattery; that
she was fond of dancing and fine company, gay
dresses and extravagant parties of pleasure, and
that, though a promised wife, she .did not deny
herself a train of followers, amongst whom the
name of a certain William Gabriel occurred most
frequently. Further on in the correspondence
the progressive rises in the writer's salary were
chronicled, and one letter was almost entirely
devoted to our mother's wooing and wedding;
after which event he became gravely urgent that
"dear hard-hearted Anne" should complete her
engagement, and become his wife. There was a
rather bitter passage in this letter, in which he
enumerated his claims upon her. " Four years
of service hard as Jacob served for Rachel, loving
devotion, faith unwearied, a heart warm and
constant, a home simple and sufficient, and a purse
containing three hundred and fifty golden
portraits of his gracious Majesty annually renewed.
Anne, dear hard-hearted Anne, will you marry
me now, or will you put me off until I am as old,
rich, and decrepit as Andrew Parkinson, who
bought him a handsome wife last week with the
fat store in his ancient money-bags?" It seemed
that Anne must have elected to wait for wealthier
days, as the succeeding epistle was intermixed
with reproaches on that score. "You think too
much of money, Anne," it said; " a fine house
would not make you happy. Money will not buy
love, joy, youth, health, which are our glorious
possession. You are foolishly afraid of poverty
—but you would never be poor with me. Oh,
Anne, if you would only be brave for your love!
I know I could content you if once I had you
with me all my own. Though we cannot begin
with a fine house, a carriage, and contingent
embarrassments, I know my fortune will grow up
to them. My darling, you would crowd all life
into twelve months' space if you had your will.
Write me a dear kind letter like a sweet sensible
Anne, and tell me you have reconsidered your
hard sentence, and are ready to revoke it.
Darling, I cannot live and be a good man without
you." All the letters after this were alternations
of passionate love, bitter reproach, and
angry recriminations. The name of William
Gabriel now occurred with jealous repetition;
questions, suspicions, charges, were founded
upon it, as the result proved, but too justly. The
last, which told the end of the story, was almost
cruel in its tone of contemptuous rebuke. " You
will be miserable, Anne, miserable in the midst
of all William Gabriel can give you, because you
do not love him; but you will deserve every
pang, every mean degrading torture, because you
are selling yourself for money where a woman
should only give herself for love."

Thus closed the one sentimental episode of our
Uncle Burfield's life. What think you of it,
John? It seems to me that Anne Cardigan
soured an honest manly spirit, and turned the
sweet waters of his life into bitterness.

When I continued my researches, another
miscellaneous packet came to hand, at the top of
which were some of our grandfather's letters to
his son at school. I read one or two, but finding
;hem mere sonorous Johnsonian compositions,
with little personal interest, I passed them over,
and went on to a group inscribed: " From William
Gabriel, after the failure of Gabriel's bank, 1826."
Another followed: " From William Gabriel at
Boulogne, 1827;" and the next after that was
"From William Gabriel's widow— a begging
petition to which I did not reply, 1827." The
date of this letter placed it ten years after that
which closed their correspondence as lovers. In
that interval Mr. Burfield had got on in the world,
had hardened and taken the gold fever, had given
up his faith in the better part of human nature,
and pensioned his widowed sister with a grudging
parsimony. Of this period were a few ill-
composed documents in a female hand, curiously
intermixed of affection and calculation; that
correspondence had its climax in an epistle of
profuse acknowledgment for some satisfactory
pecuniary arrangement which Mr. Worsley had
been empowered to make, and then it ceased
altogether. From first to last the letters from
this hand spread over a space of eight years.
Then came several more from William Gabriel's
widow, all uttering a cry of destitution and a plea
for help. For a long time it appeared that Mr.
Burfield had turned a deaf ear to these petitions,
but, at length, there was a note thanking him
for a donation which, she said, had enabled her
to procure medical aid for her child, then lying
sick of a fever. All her subsequent letters
continued to describe her as poor and struggling
vainly to educate her son. Mr. Burfield's charity
was appealed to in every one, and there were
many allusions to former days which, perhaps,
she would have been glad to bring back; but,
somehow, she failed of being pathetic; such
allusions echoed less of past affection than of
present regret. Her "Oh, my dear and true
friend, had I but listened to you, and followed