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Chuckling loud and deep over such like jests, we approached the solemn object of our inhuman mirth: a swarm of people pressed around the building. Eager to learn the cause of the assemblage, I wormed my way into the middle of the throng. Upon the step of the door sat an aged woman weeping most miserably; her grey hair streamed all wild about her cheeks, her face was buried in her hands, and through her skinny fingers oozed her tears, while deep and frequent moans burst from her breast. It was evidently no slight blast that had thus stricken the poor old creature down. In my heart I pitied her. I inquired of the persons around the cause of her distress. It was something about her son, they thought; for occasionally she would wring her hands, they said, and cry, My boy !--my poor loved boy!"

"What grieves you thus sorely, my good woman?' I compassionately accosted her.

"My son !-my dear, dear son !' she sorrowfully replied. "What of your son ?' I returned.

"Oh, sir, they have butchered him, and then thrown him like a dog into the river. Yes, I am sure-too, too wretchedly sure of it' And the poor old creature sobbed again at the thought as if her heart were like to break.

"And what should make you thus sure, my dear madam ?' I continued, when she had in a measure recomposed herself.

"My God! has he not been absent all this long, long, long night from home!' she exclaimed.

"Well, my good woman,' I said, if that be your only ground of suspicion, dry up your tears; for depend upon it you have little cause for fear.'

"Would-would to Heaven I had!' she energetically cried. 'But, no! he was too good-too tender-too kind-hearted, to allow his poor old mother to minute out one entire, vast, interminable night in anxious watchings for her son's return. Ah, sir! had you but known him half as well as we, you would have been as ready as myself to swear that, had they but left him life enough to stagger to the door, most willingly would he have tottered home to his dear sister Blanche and me.'

"Yes, my dear woman,' I replied, endeavouring to banter her out of her grief, 'I have no doubt but that your son was a most exemplary young man ; but being a man, and not absolutely a saint, it is but natural to suppose that he was not utterly insensible to the charms of the fair sex ; and, though I cannot but believe that were he dying in reality, he would have behaved in the noble manner which you have stated, still I imagine that were he only dying in love instead, his conduct would have been materially different, and that then, like the poor bird with the snake, he would have remained spell-bound-for a night at least-by the witchery of the bright eye that had fascinated him.'

"Oh no!' she exclaimed, with all a mother's ardour; my Eugene was not like other boys. He was too good a son-too fond a brother to prefer other roofs to that which sheltered us. So long as our eyes were not bedimmed with tears he was contented to his

heart's content. His whole heart was riveted to his poor sister Blanche and me.' And the tears gushed in torrents again from the poor old creature's eyes.

"But,' said I, 'have you any other reason for suspecting such to be the case?'

""Oh yes, sir!' she replied, 'he was laden with a large-to us a very large sum of money. It was his quarter's earnings, and all we had to scare starvation from the door for the next three months -for it was by the toil of his generous hand his poor sick sister and myself were enabled to exist. But he is gone-gone! They have robbed-they have murdered my poor dear boy!'

"Nay-nay! my good woman,' I responded, 'do not distress yourself thus. Depend upon it, if these be your only grounds for fear, all may yet be well, and most likely upon your return home you may find your lost son there.'

"Never-never, I am well assured, shall I behold him there alive again. No, there,' she cried, pointing to the interior of the Morgue, there is the only place where I can find him now." "How know you? Have you seen him?' I inquired.

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"Seen him!' she shudderingly exclaimed. 'Oh! never could I bring myself to look upon his dear corpse, through those grim bars, laid out. Perhaps, too, to see a deep gash cut in his fair flesh, or, may be, to behold a large hole battered in his skull, and his sweet golden hair all daubed and matted with his blood. Nono! never could I bring myself to look upon him there. And, that he is there, oh, heaven how wretchedly assured am I.'

"Would you,' I inquired, that I go in and see?'

"Oh, if you would,' she impassionately cried, 'my thanks— my best eternal thanks, sir, should be yours.'

"I turned the lock. The door creaked ominously as it opened. With a slam that made the still place shudder again, it closed after me. I stood within the dismal hall of death.

"How exquisitely, how ineffably awful is it to be among the dead! With what a ponderous, suffocating horror weighs the intense and leaden stillness of the scene upon the shrinking heart. Fearful as is the stunning clamour of the thunder, yet it speaks not to the mind with one half the mighty and appalling energy of the stark silence of hushed life.

"I stood overcome with the profound tranquillity that reigned around. Not a sound startled the solemn quietude of the grim abode. I stood as it were paralysed. Presently the recollection of the poor old being I had left waiting in acute suspense the issue of my errand came rushing on my brain.

"I cast a hurried glance along the cold, stiff remnants of mortality that there lay petrified, as it were, in death, and saw,-O God! O God! How can I tell you what I saw ? Language however nervous, thought however vivid, could never express-could never conceive the ghastly horror of that sight. Like a thunderbolt then dashed the recollection of each vile act upon my mind. The devilish plot I laid to gull the poor boy of his money; the fiend-like glee with which I gloried in his every step towards perdition; the desperate, frenzied look he fixed upon me when I dragged him there; and, O just heaven! the last awful epithet, 'DEMON!' he flung at me at parting; and then,-abject wretch that I was !-the filthy

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and inhuman jests with which I had approached his dismal restingplace, all rose with torture into my mind.

"See!-see, Alphonse!-O, see what an absorbing whirlpool is this vice but once allow yourself to sport upon the stream, who can say but that you, like I, may be sucked imperceptibly into its very vortex, and be for ever ingulphed-ay, and many innocent beings with you, as with me-in unfathomable grief. Here had I been doing what a thousand others had done before me-what you yourself have done this very night, Alphonse,-'indulging in the social game,' as it is called; and look-O, look to what a woeful and appalling end it led. There sat an aged mother, writhing with affliction, robbed of her darling son, stripped of her peace, plundered of the prop that formed at once the pride and pillar of her tottering age. There stood a poor sick sister, the bitter pangs of illness raging in her breast embittered with the still bitterer pangs of grief; the brother whose sympathy was wont to lull her deepest sufferings, whose magic love made even her poor life most precious in her eyes, snatched-irredeemably snatched from her, and she left to linger in a lonely wilderness of life. And there, there before my eyes, in that disgusting den of death, upon his wretched marble bed, his hands clenched, as if in vengeance on my head, and grinning most ghastly and most savage, lay all that remained of a loving son, a doting brother, the support and solace of his family, and -wretch that I was-MY-MY VICTIM!

"I rushed madly from out the fell abode. The poor old woman still sat upon the step. She seized me by the arm as I came out, and conned most eagerly my looks. The wretched tidings were

too plainly written in my pale face for her to fail to read them. "Ah!' she exclaimed, 'I see it is as I suspected. Well-well!' she added, raising her eyes to heaven. 'Hard and inscrutable though it be, God's will be done!'

"At length I enticed the sad old creature to her home. I will not elaborate this doleful history by describing to you, Alphonse, the devastating flood of woe that overwhelmed the poor youth's feeble sister when she first heard the fatal news. For such a death to such a brother the hardest heart might feel. Judge, then, how such a sister as the tender-hearted Blanche felt; and judge with what compunctious smartings did each of the maiden's tears sting my heart. The poor old mother saw my anguish, and thanked me for my kind commiseration,'-for little did she deem mine was the hand that desolated all her home. I strove, as well as I was able at that moment, to allay the wretched couple's grief. Itold them I was glad I had it in my power to supply, in one respect at least, the place of their Eugene, and I assured them it should be owing to no want of zeal in me if Time did not enable me to do so in all other regards towards them. Again they thanked me for my sympathy,' and said they feared they must on one account encroach upon my kindness. I begged them to rely on my desire to serve them.

"The favour, then,' replied the aged mother, we would ask of 'le bon monsieur,' is this. The only being in this crowded city whom we poor 'paysannes,' could call our friend now, as you know, lies in the Morgue; and I am sure that, for the power Blanche or I could have to rescue his dear corpse from that horrid place, there

must he remain. But, maybe you, in your goodness, sir, will not refuse to save our poor Eugene from such a fate.'

"As you may readily imagine, it required no slight self-denial on my part to promise to revisit that abominable den of death, still I could not find it in my heart to say the poor old creature nay,-so I consented.

"It was not long afterwards before I stood once more upon the threshold of the fatal building. In order to reach the keeper's house it was necessary for me to pass along the hall where lay the ghastly relics of my poor young victim. I need not explain to you the haste with which I hurried through the dismal place. On being conducted to the keeper, I described to him the body which I told him I had come to claim. He inquired of me the young man's Christian name.

"Eugene,' I replied; but, pray, Monsieur,' I added, 'allow me to ask what should make you put the question?'

"A letter, sir,' he returned, 6 was found upon the young man, signed with his nom de Baptême, and it was but to ascertain the justice of your claim that prompted me to make the inquiry.'

"I soon satisfied the Governor's doubts upon that head, and having arranged that the body was to await my disposal, I hurried from the place with the poor youth's farewell letter in my hand.

"You can easily conceive how much I longed for some retired spot wherein to read the melancholy document. At length I reached the Tuileries. I plunged into the middle of the groves, and tearing open the billet, read what while memory lingers in this brain can never be erased from out my mind. It ran as follows:

"Farewell—a long farewell to you, beloved mother! and, oh! farewell-a long farewell to you, my darling Blanche! I write to you from the borders of eternity. Oh! my dear-dear Blanche ! and, oh! my still dearer mother! I have been happy with youhave I not?-in want. I could have been happy with you that I could, proud as I am,-in beggary. But, ah! I cannot bear to look upon you in disgrace.

"I know you will be at a loss to divine how I, who ever loathed vice from the very depths of my heart, could to-night have got infected by the corruption: how I, who never loved the filthy dross of this world but for the little comforts it bestowed on you could ever have fallen a prey to avarice. I will tell you.

"You know young Adolphe Sébron, my fellow clerk, and how I used to wonder how he-who I was well aware received but the same small salary as myself,-contrived to live in all the luxury he did. Well, the other day I ventured to hint as much to him. He said he would be candid with me, and confess it was by play; and taking from his desk a heavy bag of money, told me they were his winnings of the previous night. There must have been three thousand francs at least. The sight sunk deep into my heart. I thought how happy and how comfortable you could be were I to meet with a similar turn of luck.

6665 'The next day I was to receive my quarter's salary. No sooner was the hands than I resolved to go that very night, money in my up the hard-got little sum at Fortune's shrine. "How can I describe to you, dear mother, the blaze of light, of

and offer

beauty, and of riches, that there flashed upon my eyes? Suffice it. There was gold, glittering, fascinating gold-gold, the ignis fatuus of this benighted world, gold, the apple of man's eye,—lying in ravishing profusion about the place; nor were there wanting-to consummate the wily scheme-the bright-eyed and insinuating daughters of Eve, to coax man on as of old to taste the damning fruit.

"What wonder, then, that I, who had never seen, had never dreamt of anything half as gorgeous, should have been gulled by the glowing baits around me, or that, bewildered with the dazzling sight, I should have allowed myself to be inveigled into play.

"I need not tell you that at the beginning I was most timid and most cautious at the game. However, I won the first few stakes, and grew more venturesome, played higher and higher on each fresh coup, while each new game served only to increase my already bulky gains. But the tables at length were turned, and Misfortune, with its attendant, Desperation, pressed hard upon me. I lost-and lost-and lost-and lost again-until at last I started from my chair, deprived of the only means we had to eke existence out the next three months-a very beggar.

"Starvation I could have suffered by myself without a groan; but to see you in your old age, my dearest mother, and you in your youth, my poor, loved Blanche, writhing with the pangs of excruciating want,-to perceive you dragged slowly from me by the iron hand of hunger to the tomb, would have been maddening— would have been intolerable.

"Racked by such thoughts I stopped unwittingly before a table where sat two of Chance's sternest fanatics worshipping their senseless idol. They had staked five hundred francs upon the game. I watched their play to the end, and when I saw the winner grasp his heavy gains, I thought it wanted but one such stroke of luck to retrieve my lost fortune. The idea was too strong for my weak soul to wrestle with, and-O mother! mother!-I hardly dare to tell you what it pushed me on to do. But I was mad-desperately mad!-overwhelmed with ruin, and, like one drowning, ready to catch at any straw cast before me.

"I had two thousand francs of my master's in my pocket, and can you believe it-oh, no! no! you never can believe that I,—I whom you, from my very cradle, toiled to teach that honesty could make the poor man the rich man's peer, could so abuse your care as to appropriate those two thousand francs to my own accursed purposes. But I was crazed with desperation,-blinded with the glare of ruin, and knew not what I did; and so, like an idiot, like a villain, with my master's money in my hand, I went, and gamed

once more.

"I cast five hundred of the sum upon the table. We played. I lost. A second five hundred strewed the board. Again we played. Again I lost. A third five hundred backed the ensuing game. Once more we played. Once more I lost. The fourth, the last five hundred, with a desperate hand I flung into the pool. One other time we played. One other time I lost. My only hope was gone! Ruin stared me in the face!

"Frenzied with my fate, I rushed from out the place. But,

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