"And will Helen's love console you a little for all that you have lost to-day?"

"Ah, Helen!" cried Joseph, in a voice suffocated with emotion.

“Because, if it will, it is yours," said the girl, bending still lower over his head, and murmuring close to his ear.

Then, with gentle force, she raised him from his kneeling posture.

In another moment he was seated by her side; his tongue was loosed, and he was pouring forth, with all the eloquence of passion, his long-hidden admiration, and long-sealed love, to ears that gladly listened to the tale; and then he learned how long, how exclusively, and how unchangeably Helen had loved him, even from their childhood; how she had resolved never to marry any one else; and how, when she had heard that he was to be married to Elizabeth Bell, she had still wished to befriend him, and had gone secretly to Black, Brown & Co., and had deposited five thousand pounds with them to Joseph Morris's credit, upon condition of their taking him into partnership on his marriage.

All this came out through the obligatory truthtelling on both sides; and finally, it broke upon

them like a sunburst that it was truth-telling which had brought him all this happiness at last.

"God bless the truth! Long live the truth! It got me into some ugly scrapes at first, but has brought me gloriously through them all; and henceforth will I speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, so long as I live!" exclaimed Joseph, with enthusiasm, as, late that evening, he took a happy leave of Helen Lyle, and threw himself into an up-town omnibus.

CHAPTER VII.

THE INVESTIGATION.

Glorlous!

O'er all the ills of life victorious!"

JOSEPH MORRIS was just stepping out of the omnibus at the stand, with a face perfectly radiant with happiness, wild with joy, when a familiar voice, in a very unfamiliar tone, struck his ear, exclaiming

"Ah! there he is, now, poor dear fellow! Thank Heaven, we have found him at last! But good gracious how wild he do look, to be surefor all the world as if he was a-going to leap and

dance. Anybody, only to see him now, would know as how he was ramping mad. Joey, my poor dear boy, do you know your old dear aunty?" inquired good Mrs. Morris, looking anxiously into his face.

Astonishment at this question blending with the delight that was effervescing in his heart and sparkling from his face, did make our hero look rather queer. Seizing his aunt's hand, and shaking it heartily in the ecstacy of his soul, he answered, joyously

"Know you? why, what should hinder me from knowing you? To be sure I know you, Aunt Molly? And oh, aunt, I am so happy!"

"Are you, poor dear innocent?" she said, in a coaxing tone, edging cautiously away from him. Then turning to the policeman who was attending her, she whispered

"He gets wilder and wilder: you'd better secure him at once, before he does himself or some one else a mischief. And you'd better slip the cuffs on him, for fear he should break away; but oh, Mr. Policeman, don't be rougher than you can help with him, as if he was a convict, which there never was one in our family. Be gentle with him, poor misfortunate!"

Joseph Morris, totally oblivious or incredulous about Harry Blewitt's threat of Bedlam, gazed from one to the other in wild surprise, which, joined to the excessive delight that still radiated from his face, and the authentic accounts of his strange behavior during the day, certainly warranted the strongest suspicions of his sanity. The policeman, deluded by Mrs. Morris, and deceived by Mr. Joseph's own looks, approached him cautiously; and then, before Joseph had time to recover his astonishment, or think of resisting the outrage, this experienced man-catcher had slipped the hand-cuffs upon the wrists of the supposed maniac, who, finding himself so unexpectedly restrained, began, too late, to struggle, stamp, and threaten, exclaiming

"What's all this? What the deuce do you mean ? Take them off this instant! What have I done? Release me, I say! I'll make you repent of this. Let me go this moment, I say!"

"Oh, deary me, oh, deary me! It's mounting higher and higher. Oh, Joey, my poor, dear innocent, do be quiet, and go with the kind gentleman. It's to do you good," coaxed Mrs. Morris, keeping at a safe distance all the time.

"Kind gentleman! an insolent policeman,

going beyond his authority. I'll pay him for it!" cried the young man, still struggling violently.

"Oh, my poor dear boy, it's all for your own good; it's to keep you from doing mischief."

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Doing mischief! I believe you are all mad.” 'Ah, that's the way with all these misfortunates; they think everybody mad but themselves," whimpered Mrs. Morris.

"Same as drunkards, mum, as thinks every body intoxified but themselves," said the policeman, who was red in the face with his efforts to force the victim into a cab.

"As sure as I live I will punish you, you insolent wretch! and you, too, aunt," exclaimed Joseph, vindictively.

"Ah, poor dear innocent, he don't know what he's a saying of. It's the worst of these poor misfortunates as they allers turns against their best friends," sobbed the old lady.

"Sure to do it, mum: cause why? their intellectuals are bottom upwards likewise," said the hard-working officer, as the perspiration poured from his face in his efforts to master the supposed lunatic.

"Oh, Mr. Policeman, call some one to help.