be lightened of all injustice—spare the innocent now; you know I never deceived you; Elvira knows it; I am willing to bear any thing it pleases God to lay upon me, but I cannot have my good name taken, it is all that remains to me."
This appeal checked Mrs. Wilson for a moment, she would have replied, but she was interrupted by two coloured women, whom she bad sent for, to perform the last offices for Phillis. She restrained her passion, gave them the necessary directions, and withdrew to her own room: where, we doubt not, she was followed by the rebukes of her conscience; for however neglected and stifled, its 'still small voice' will be heard in darkness and solitude.
It may seem strange, that Mrs. Wilson should have manifested such anxiety to throw the blame of this affair on Jane; but however a parent may seek by every flattering unction vanity can devise, to evade the truth, the misconduct of a child will convey a reproach, and reflect dishonour on the author of its existence.
Jane and Elvira crept to their beds without exchanging a single word. Elvira felt some shame at her own meanness; but levity and selfishness always prevailed in her mind, and she soon lost all consciousness of realities, and visions of dances and music and moonlight floated in her brain; sometimes 'a change came o'er the spirit of her dream,' and she shrunk from a violent grasp, and she felt the icy touch of death; and wherever she turned, a ray from her cousin's mild blue eye fell
