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Rh consequences the most grievous and fatal evils. Left to himself, he embraced his precious little daughters, rejoicing to think their mother had not been a witness to what had given even to himself so great an alarm.

Taking them each by the hand, he returned to the sitting-room, where he had left the Baronet. The demand he had made upon his purse returned to his memory, but he was no longer present. Previous to his visit, De Brooke had been making some arrangement of his papers in an écritoire, which then lay open on a table before him; he was about turning the key, but the Baronet's sad countenance haunting his imagination, with the charitable purpose of sending him a few bank-notes, he laid his hand upon a pocket-case, which inclosed the whole of his savings during the period he had inhabited the Bench, and which he had been enabled, through the strict œconomy and frugality of his wife, to amass, towards the liquidation in part of the sums he owed. But what unspeakable astonishment took possession of him, when he found the greater part was abstracted, some bills of small value alone remaining!

If ever philosophy was required by De Brooke, it was at that moment. Even the patient