Brotherly Love.

bing with affection for him , that lit up the scenery and gave a voice tc creation . The mountain in the distance from which he had been accustomed to gaze with Ida , on the country around , had once been consecrated in his eyes—she had poetised it . But it was now a mere material elevation . He turned from it as the Parsee might have done from the temple where the

sacred fire was extinguished . He departed from the neighbourhood , bearing in his mind the conviction that the only object which charmed his existence was an illusion , and that in all creation there was not an eye that would brighten at his approach or shed a tear on Ms tomb were he consigned to it on the morrow . Simon proceeded for some distance without encountering any person

with whom he was acquainted , until he reached a point where the road diverged , and there he met Alfred Beaufrere . He would have passed Mm without recognition had not the latter accosted him in friendly terms , which he acknowledged only by a bitter and contemptuous smile . " Simon , " said Alfred , " we must not part thus . I have thoughtlessly wounded your feelings , and I sought your abode to ask your forgiveness .

Will you say you forgive me ?" "' Eorgivel' I , the rude , deformed , defeated and reviled , forgive the handsome , gifted and successful Alfred Beaufrere for having stepped between me and the miserable bauble I sought ?—by heaven , except that you know my spirit too well to chafe me recklessly , I should deem this some mockery . " " As I hope for that heaven , I mean what I say . Listen to me patientlv , Simon , we have once been children together—"

" And there was no other point of resemblance between us . We were children in years , not in circumstances ; for what was my childhood ? a waste as sterile as my manhood . The authors of my being disowned me ; they gave mc material dross instead of affection , and left their misshapen offspring at his birth to the charity of strangers . Tes , we were once children , but what was my childhood ? I was a child in years alone ; no

genial attribute of childhood surrounded me . I had a childhood without love , without a parental eye to gaze on me , without a maternal caress to warm me . If there be such a thing as human love , it was not shewn to me . Ail shrunk from the repulsive infant ; his tears or smiles were alike unheeded , and awoke no sympathy . The childish prattle that rose to my lips died in utterance , for it gladdened no ear and received no

encouragement . And when I emerged from the nursery , and felt growinglife stirring in every thew and sinew , it was only to encounter mockery and derision from the associates of my years . I never was a child . " " I am sorry that I should have said anything to excite disagreeable feelings . Simon , but do you not exaggerate circumstances ? If nature has not been bountiful to you , all are not so ungenerous as to turn away from

you on that account . Have I done so ?" " Ton talk to me of childhood , " said Simon , not heeding Alfred ' s observation , " and I cannot understand you . I can imagine your childhood , for you were formed to be an object , a sensible object of affection . Ton