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4 for his sake, and that he had returned to poverty, instead of the comfort, in which he had left her. The reckless boy little thought that he had eaten the very heart of all her means before he had brought this last sorrow upon her. But he under stood it all now, (though she did not com plain,) by her threadbare garments, and her worn face. He shrank from every touch of those wasted hands; he saw that they had known unwonted toil. He did not question her, nor did she tell him how she had parted with the homestead, and was now dependent on her own la bour for the bread she ate. There were friends who would have, received her to their homes, but she knew they would shrink from contact with a felon, and the mother toiled that her son might have, at least, the semblance of a home to come to, when he should be free. And now her patient loving-kindness had accom plished all she had hoped and prayed for. He was free, and, better than all, a pen itent man. She went out towards nightfall, to purchase some needful garments, with a hoard that she had long kept for that use. She did not like to leave him, but thev were going to commence their journey homewards on the morrow, and so, see ing that he was made very comfortable, but not telling him her errand, she pre pared to go out. She came back, even after the door had closed, with a yearn ing to look at her recovered treasure once more, and found him sunk into an atti tude of listless despondency, that gave her a sudden pang ot pain. . She went up to him and raised his hand, pressing it between her own. She longed to say something to comfort him. “You have not asked for Lucy,” she said, at length; but he only covered his face and groaned. “She is just the same,” his mother said, hesitating a little, as if to approach more carefully, for she had rightly di vined his thoughts. “Just the same cheer ful, dutiful girl, though not so light-heart ed now. She comes to see me very often, and it was she who persuaded her father to sign”—and then she stopped again, for she did not like to remind him that he had ever needed such clemency. “She sent you her love, James, and bade me tell you that she had never be lieved them, and that she had tried to be SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE. a daughter to me. Dear child, she has, indeed, James, been an angel in my dark est days.” “Did she tell you that mother ? Iler love to such as 1 am.” “And why not ? Do you think my love has altered.” “But you are my mother .” She smiled, sadly perhaps. It was such a testimony to the faithful love that had borne him in her heart through “good and evil report.” “I must go now, James, but I shall be back very soon, and you know we are to be always together after this, so it will not make in uch difference, a half hour. Will it my son 1 She said this to hear the sound of his voice again. No wonder that the long hushed music was dear to her. “Little difference, mother !” And she went out with a heaviness she could not define, caught from that mournful tone. CConclusion in our next.) THE QUEEN’S OPERA. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. Os the Haymarket Opera, my account, in fine, is this: —Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion : a hall as of the Caliph Airaschid, or him that com manded the slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted up by the genies, regardless of expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human capital, could do no more. Ar tists, too, as they are called, have been got together from the ends of the woild, regardless likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of them even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular, called Coletti, or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast cf his face, by the tones ol his voice, by his general bearing, so far as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent sensi bilities, of delicate intuitions, just sym pathies ; originally an almost poetic soul, or man of genius as we term it; stamped by nature as capable of far other work than squalling here, like a blind Samson to make the Philistines sport! Nay, all of them had aptitudes, per haps of a distinguished kind; and must, by their own and other people’s labour, have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness, earnest assiduity, and pa tient travail, to what breeds men to the most arduous trades. I speak not of kings’ grandees, or the like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters, can have had such pains taken with them, lhe very ballet girls, with their muslin saucers round them, were perhaps little short of miraculous; whirling and spin- ing there in strange mad vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves motion less, each upon her left or right great-toe, with the other leg stretched out on an angle of ninety degrees ; —as if you had suddenly pricked into the floor, by one of their points, a pair, or rather a multi tudinous cohort, of mad restlessly jump ing and clipping scissors, and so bidding them rest, with opened blades, and stand still, in the Devil’s name ! A truly nota ble motion ; marvellous, almost miracu lous, were not the people there so used to it. Motion peculiar to the Opera ; perhaps the ugliest, and surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a female crea ture in this world. Nature abhors it; but Art does, at least, admit it to border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or Taglioni the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rub ber, or filled with hydrogen gas, and in clined by positive levity to bolt through the ceiling ; perhaps neither Semiramis, nor Catherine the Second, had bred her self so carefully. Such talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered from the four winds, was now here, to do its feat and be paid for it. Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of Fortunatus seemed to have opened itself, and the divine art of Musi cal Sound and Rhythmic Motion w r as welcomed with an explosion of all the magnificence which the other arts, fine and course, could achieve. For you are to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the rear of it, too; to say nothing of the Stan fields, and hosts of scene-painters, ma chinists, engineers, enterprisers ; —fit to have taken Gibraltar, written the History of England, or reduced Ireland into In dustrial Regiments, had they so set their minds to it! Alas, and of all these notable or notice able human talents, and excellent perse verances and energies, backed by moun tains of wealth, and led by the divine art of Music and Rhythm vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was to be the issue here this evening ? An hour’s amusement, not amusement either, but wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select populace of male and female per sons, who seemed to me not worth much amusing! Could any one have pealed into their hearts once, one true thought, and glimpse of self-vision:—“High di zened, most expensive persons, aristo cracy so called, or best of the world, be ware, beware what proofs you give ;of betterness and bestness !” And then the salutary pang of conscience in reply: “A select populace, with money in its puise, and drilled a little by the posture maker : good Heavens ! if that were wffiat, here and everywhere in God’s creation, lam ? And a world all dying because I am, and show my self to be, and to have [Jan. 3,