42 TURNS OF FORTUNE.

scatheless. The good man delivered this in-
formation with the manner of a person who
feels he comes with good news, and expects it
will be so received ; but Sarah Bond could only
regard Alfred as the calumniator of her father’s
memory, the despoiler of her rights. The wild
expression of joy in Mabel’s face, as she threw
herself on her aunt’s bosom, gave her to under-
stand that she ought to be thankful for what
saved her from a prison. :

Words struggled for utterance. She who
had borne so much and so bravely, was over-
come. Again and again she tried to speak,
but for some hours she fell from one fainting
fit into another. She had borne up against all
disasters, until the power of endurance was
overwhelmed; and now, she was attacked by
an illness so Golem, that it threatened dissolu-
tion. At this very time, when she needed so
much sympathy, a stern and sevére man, in
whom there was no pity, a man who had re-
ceived large sums of money from Miss Bond
as a tradesman, and whose account had stood
over from a particular request of his own, be-
lieving that all was gone, and that he should
lose, took advantage of her illness to levy an
execution upon the goods, and to demand a
sale.

At this time her reason had quite deserted
her, and poor Mabel was incapable of thought
beyond her duty to her aunt, which made her