lasting basis than a skill in the quirks of law,--these are yet to come;
these I will not die till I have enjoyed! Men die not till their
destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells and soars within me says
that the destiny of William Brandon is but half begun!"

With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What were the
reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? Need we ask? Let us
picture to ourselves his shattered health, the languor of sickness
heightening the gloom which makes the very air of a jail; his certainty
of the doom to be passed against him; his knowledge that the uncle of
Lucy Brandon was to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his accuser,
and that in all human probability the only woman he had ever loved must
sooner or later learn the criminality of his life and the ignominy of his
death; let us but glance at the above blackness of circumstances that
surrounded him, and it would seem that there is but little doubt as to
the complexion of his thoughts! Perhaps, indeed, even in that terrible
and desolate hour one sweet face shone on him, "and dashed the darkness
all away." Perhaps, too, whatever might be the stings of his conscience,
one thought, one remembrance of a temptation mastered and a sin escaped,
brought to his eyes tears that were sweet and healing in their source.
But the heart of a man in Clifford's awful situation is dark and
inscrutable; and often when the wildest and gloomiest external
circumstances surround us, their reflection sleeps like a shadow, calm
and still upon the mind.

The next morning, the whole town of (a town in which, we regret to say,
an accident once detained ourself for three wretched days, and which we
can, speaking therefore from profound experience, assert to be in
ordinary times the most melancholy and peopleless-looking congregation of
houses that a sober imagination can conceive) exhibited a scene of such