one effort fail you, try another.”  To carry out this principle, then, did Finch draw from the cunning inventive of his brain a plan which he could not doubt for a moment would be successful.  The reader may blush while we record the fact, of Finch, deeming a partner necessary to the gaining his purpose, finding a willing accomplice in one of Montague’s clerks, to whom he disclosed the secret of the fair woman being nothing more than a fugitive slave, whose shame they would share if the plan proved successful.  This ingenious plan, so old that none but a fellow of this stamp would have adopted it, was nothing more than the intercepting by the aid of the clerk all Montague’s letters to his wife.  By this they came in possession of the nature of his family affairs; and after permitting the receipt of two letters by Sylvia, possessed themselves of her answers that they might be the better able to carry out the evil of their scheme.  After sufficient time had passed, did Sylvia receive a letter, duly posted at New Orleans, purporting to have been written by a clerk in the employ of the firm, and informing her, having acknowledged becomingly the receipt of her letter, that Montague had been seized with the epidemic, and now lay in a precarious state.  Much concerned was she at the painful intelligence; but she almost as soon found consolation in the assurances of the clerk who brought her the letter, and, to strengthen his own cause, told her he had seen a captain just arrived up, who had met her husband a day after the date of the letter, quite well.  Indeed, this was necessary to that functionary’s next move, for he was the conspirator of Finch, and the author of the letter which had caused so much sadness to the woman who now sought his advice.  In suspense did the anxious woman wait the coming tidings of her affectionate husband:  alas! in a few days was the sad news of his death by the fatal scourge brought to her in an envelope with broad black border and appropriate seal.  Overwhelmed with grief, the good woman read the letter, describing her Montague to have died happy, as the conspirator looked on with indifference.  The confidential clerk of the firm had again performed a painful and unexpected duty.  The good man died, said he, invoking a blessing on the head of his child, and asking heaven to protect his wife; to which he would add, that the affairs of the house were in the worst possible condition, there not being assets to pay a fraction of the debts.  And here we would beg the reader to use his imagination, and save us the description of much that followed.  Not all their threats nor persuasions, however, could induce her to yield to their designs; defiantly did she repulse the advances of the crawling Finch; nobly did she spurn his persuasions; firmly did she, heedless of his threat to acquaint Pringle Blowers of her whereabouts, bid him be gone from her door.  The fellow did go, grievously disappointed; and, whether from malice or mercenary motives we will not charge, sought and