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the tale is
sought to be attained. On the other hand, if I may presume to conjecture
the most probable claim to favour which the work, regarded as a whole,
may possess--it may possibly be found in a tolerably accurate
description of certain phases of modern civilisation, and in the
suggestion of some truths that may be worth considering in our
examination of social influences or individual conduct.

CHAPTER I.
THE DEATH-BED OF JOHN VERNON.--HIS DYING
WORDS.--DESCRIPTION OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE
HEROINE.--THE OATH.

"Is the night calm, Constance?"
"Beautiful! the moon is up."
"Open the shutters wider, there. It is a beautiful night. How beautiful!
Come hither, my child."
The rich moonlight that now shone through the windows streamed on
little that it could invest with poetical attraction. The room was small,
though not squalid in its character and appliances. The bed-curtains, of
a dull chintz, were drawn back, and showed the form of a man, past
middle age, propped by pillows, and bearing on his countenance the
marks of approaching death. But what a countenance it still was! The
broad, pale, lofty brow; the fine, straight, Grecian nose; the short,
curved lip; the full, dimpled chin; the stamp of genius in every line and
lineament;--these still defied disease, or rather borrowed from its very
ghastliness a more impressive majesty. Beside the bed was a table
spread with books of a motley character. Here an abstruse system of
Calculations on Finance; there a volume of wild Bacchanalian Songs;
here the lofty aspirations of Plato's Phoedon; and there the last speech
of some County Paris on a Malt Tax: old newspapers and dusty
pamphlets completed the intellectual litter; and above them rose,
mournfully enough, the tall, spectral form of a half-emptied phial, and a
chamber-candlestick, crested by its extinguisher.
A light step approached the bedside, and opposite the dying man now
stood a girl, who might have seen her thirteenth year. But her
features--of an exceeding, and what may be termed a regal
beauty--were as fully developed as those of one who had told twice her
years; and not a trace of the bloom or the softness of girlhood could be
marked on her countenance. Her complexion was pale as the whitest
marble, but clear, and lustrous; and her raven hair, parted over her brow
in a fashion then uncommon, increased the statue-like and classic effect
of her noble features. The expression of her countenance seemed cold,
sedate, and somewhat stern; but it might, in some measure, have belied
her heart; for, when turned to the moonlight, you might see that her
eyes were filled with tears, though she did not weep; and you might tell
by the quivering of her lip, that a little hesitation in replying to any

remark from the sufferer arose from her difficulty in commanding her
emotions.
"Constance," said the invalid, after a pause, in which he seemed to have
been gazing with a quiet heart on the soft skies, that, blue and eloquent
with stars, he beheld through the unclosed windows:--"Constance, the
hour is coming; I feel it by signs which I cannot mistake. I shall die this
night."
"Oh, God!--my father!--my dear, dear father!" broke from Constance's
lips; "do not speak thus--do not--I will go to Doctor ----"
"No, child, no!--I loathe--I detest the thought of help. They denied it
me while it was yet time. They left me to starve or to rot in gaol, or to
hang myself! They left me like a dog, and like a dog I will die! I would
not have one iota taken from the justice--the deadly and dooming
weight of my dying curse." Here violent spasms broke on the speech of
the sufferer; and when, by medicine and his daughter's attentions, he
had recovered, he said, in a lower and calmer key:--"Is all quiet below,
Constance? Are all in bed? The landlady--the servants--our
fellow-lodgers?"
"All, my father."
"Ay; then I shall die happy. Thank Heaven, you are my only nurse and
attendant. I remember the day when I was ill after one of their rude
debauches. Ill!--a sick headache--a fit of the spleen--a spoiled lapdog's
illness! Well: they wanted me that night to support one of their paltry
measures--their parliamentary measures. And I had a prince feeling my
pulse, and a duke mixing my draught, and a dozen earls sending their
doctors to me. I was of use to them then! Poor me! Read me that note,
Constance--Flamborough's note. Do you hesitate? Read it, I say!"
Constance trembled and complied.
"My dear Vernon, "I am really au desespoir to hear of your melancholy
state;--so sorry I cannot assist you: but you know my embarrassed
circumstances. By the by, I saw his Royal Highness yesterday. 'Poor

Vernon!' said he; 'would a hundred pounds do him any good?' So we