of Paris, but you did not know that the chief of my personal property was invested in his hands. I had great confidence in him, and I am yet willing to believe, that he is not wholly unworthy of my esteem. A variety of circumstances have concurred to ruin him, and—I am ruined with him.” 

 St. Aubert paused to conceal his emotion. 

 “The letters I have just received from M. Quesnel,” resumed he, struggling to speak with firmness, “enclosed others from Motteville, which confirmed all I dreaded.” 

 “Must we then quit La Vallée?” said Emily, after a long pause of silence. “That is yet uncertain,” replied St. Aubert, “it will depend upon the compromise Motteville is able to make with his creditors. My income, you know, was never large, and now it will be reduced to little indeed! It is for you, Emily, for you, my child, that I am most afflicted.” His last words faltered; Emily smiled tenderly upon him through her tears, and then, endeavouring to overcome her emotion, “My dear father,” said she, “do not grieve for me, or for yourself; we may yet be happy;—if La Vallée remains for us, we must be happy. We will retain only one servant, and you shall scarcely perceive the change in your income. Be comforted, my dear sir; we shall not feel the want of those luxuries, which others value so highly, since we never had a taste for them; and poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, or in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.” 

 St. Aubert concealed his face with his handkerchief, and was unable to speak; but Emily continued to urge to her father the truths, which himself had impressed upon her mind. 

 “Besides, my dear sir, poverty cannot deprive us of intellectual delights. It cannot deprive you of the comfort of affording me examples of fortitude and benevolence; nor me of the delight of consoling a beloved parent. It cannot deaden our taste for the grand, and the beautiful, or deny us the means of indulging it; for the scenes of nature—those sublime spectacles, so infinitely superior to all artificial luxuries! are open for the enjoyment of the poor, as well as of the rich. Of what, then, have we to complain, so long as we are not in want of necessaries? Pleasures, such as wealth cannot buy, will still be ours. We retain, then, the sublime luxuries of nature, and lose only the frivolous ones of art.” 

 St. Aubert could not reply: he caught Emily to his bosom, their 

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