so decayed, that every attempt at repair made a fresh rent, and the very thread she worked with seemed less attenuated than the worn-out materials it wrought on.

“The grandfather, still seated in his ample chair by the care of Ines, (for his son had grown very indifferent about him), watched her moving fingers, and exclaimed, with the petulance of dotage, “Aye,—you are arraying them in embroidery, while I am in rags.—In rags!” he repeated, holding out the slender garments which the beggared family could with difficulty spare him. Ines tried to pacify him, and showed her work, to prove that it was the remnants of her children’s former dress she was repairing; but, with horror unutterable, she perceived her husband incensed at these expressions of dotage, and venting his frantic and fearful indignation in language that she tried to bury the sound of, by pressing closer to the old man, and attempting to fix his bewildered attention on herself and her work. This was easily accomplished, and all was well, till they were about to separate on their wretched precarious errands. Then a new and untold feeling trembled at the heart of one of the young wanderers. Julia remembered the occurrence of a preceding evening,—she thought of the tempting gold, the flattering language, and the tender tone of the young cavalier. She saw her family perishing around her for want,—she felt it consuming her own vitals,—and as she cast her eye round the squalid room, the gold glittered brighter and brighter in her eye. A faint hope, aided perhaps by a still more faint suggestion of venial pride, swelled in her heart. “Perhaps he might love me,” she whispered to herself, “and think me not unworthy of his hand.” Then despair returned to the charge. “I must die of famine,” she thought, “if I return unaided,—and why may I not by my death benefit my family! I will never survive shame, but they may,—for they will not know it!”—She went out, and took a direction different from that of the family.

“Night came on,—the wanderers returned slowly one by one,—Julia was the last. Her brothers and sister had each obtained a trifling alms, for they had learned Spanish enough to beg in,—and the old man’s face wore a vacant smile, as he saw the store produced, which was, after all, scarce sufficient to afford a meal for the youngest. “And have you brought us nothing, Julia?” said her parents. She stood apart, and in silence. Her father repeated the question in a raised and angry voice. She started at the sound, and, rushing forward, buried her head in her mother’s bosom. “Nothing,—nothing,” she cried, in a broken and suffocated voice; “I tried,—my weak and wicked heart submitted to the thought 

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