possible inquiry, but without obtaining more satisfactory information, the General and his family put on mourning.  The shock he had sustained produced bad effects on an already enfeebled constitution, and accelerated the veteran’s decease.  During his last days, he frequently alluded to ‘poor Bessie’ in affectionate terms; and we then gathered at least one fact relating to her past history.  Her lover, it seems, had been suddenly carried off by malignant fever on the eve of their wedding-day, bequeathing to Bessie all his property; and Bessie, who had never known serious sorrow before, gave no sign, by sigh or lamentation, that she bemoaned the untimely fate of her betrothed, but withdrew herself from friends and connections, and became the restless, homeless, harmless being at whose peculiarities we had so often laughed, little thinking that tears of secret anguish had probably bedewed the pathway of her early wanderings.  This very concealment of her grief, however, may have arisen from the peculiar idiosyncrasy which procured for her among all who knew her the name of the Mysterious Lady.  But we will not talk of her in the past tense.  We are so sure of her being alive, that we are even now anxious to conclude our visit to the pleasant house where this is indited, feeling a presentiment we cannot overcome, that the first interesting object we shall see on returning home is that mystical card which has so often startled and baffled our curiosity—­’Miss.  Jerningham.’

CASH, CORN, AND COAL MARKETS.

A circle of a few hundred yards only in diameter, of which the centre should be the Duke of Wellington’s statue in front of the Royal Exchange, London, would enclose within its magic girdle a far greater amount of real, absolute power, than was ever wielded by the most magnificent conqueror of ancient or modern times.  There can be no doubt of this; for is it not the mighty heart of the all but omnipotent money force of the world, whose aid withheld, invincible armies become suddenly paralysed, and the most gallant fleets that ever floated can neither brave the battle nor the breeze?  And this stupendous power, say moralists, has neither a god, a country, nor a conscience!  To-day, upon security, it will furnish arms and means to men struggling to rescue their country from oppression, themselves from servitude and chains—­to-morrow, upon the assurance of a good dividend, it will pay the wages of the soldiery who have successfully desolated that country, and exterminated or enslaved its defenders.  Trite, if sad commonplaces these, to which the world listens, if at all, with impatient indifference.  I have not a very strong faith in the soundness of the commercial evangel upon this subject; still, the very last task I should set myself would be a sermon denunciative of mammon-worship—­mammon-love—­mammon-influence—­and so on; and this for two quite sufficient reasons—­one, that I have myself, I blushingly confess, a very strong