sent-I was sitting alone, in a darkened room, half stupified, half sleeping, I believe, for I had not closed my eyes for three nights. On a sudden I heard wheels in the street; I knew they came to me, and I covered my face, and tried to pray-I was right; there was a low knock at the door, and then the dull, huddling sound of feet, below first, and then ascending the stairs, and one voice above the rest, giving directions. I fixed my eyes on my chamber-door, expecting it would open; but the feet passed it, and I heard a voice say, 'he does not know where he is.' He was alive then! alive! and under our roof! I sprung up from the bed upon which I had flung myself, and restraining myself with a force not my own, crept softly towards the chamber to which they had borne him. I grew deadly sick on the threshold; but at last I mustered up my strength, and went in!

"The sight which I saw !-Merciful Heaven! that it could be he!—that maimed, broken, pale, bleeding.

.

"I sat beside him all the night, his hand in mine; and I wiped his brow to the last, and I moistened his lips. He once called me by my name; and I knew when those dreadful pangs seized him, for then he drew his hand away, lest he should clench it suddenly and hurt me. My mother had been carried to bed in violent hysterics.

"It was when the dawn of morning was beginning to make the watchlight look red and sickly, that I felt the hand in mine grow cold, and the dew thicken on his brow; he was asleep, I thought; for, fool that I was! I hoped to the last! He was asleep; but it was the sleep of death!"

She paused for awhile, exhausted by the vehemence

with which she had spoken; and the two were silent, for Lucy's tears were flowing too fast to permit her to speak.

"You know the rest," resumed Helen, yet more feebly than before" how my mother chose, within a fortnight after we laid him cold in the grave, to marry a Russian officer, young enough to be her son; to accompany him to St. Petersburg, and to abandon me in Paris; she said I might go and live en pension. You know, too, how by blessed chance my dear uncle found me out; and now you may know what have been my feelings since I have been here. I listen to love-tales, when my heart was yearning for the dead!-Why, on that very evening when Lord Calder sat talking in the ante-room about some charm which should command dreams, when Alicia interrupted us, you may remember, I was thinking, in the superstition of my misery, of the possibility. . . . for though I have prayed and longed, and implored Heaven but to grant that one prayer, and let me look upon him again, if only in my sleep, I never dreamed of him till last night.-I could not have spoken of him if I had not seen him-if he had not promised me. I could not have told you my tale. And now, dearest, dry your eyes. You must go downnay, indeed you must, or my aunt will be displeased. I have told you all, for my own relief, and not to distress you; and you must think of me, when I am gone, hopefully and cheerfully.-Nay, I will say no more, then; but, indeed, I had better-I would rather be left for awhile; I have wearied myself with talking. Good night, my love, Heaven bless you, and send you a happy new year!"

Towards midnight the faithful girl, whose heart had never left her cousin's side for a moment, stole up to her chamber, heedless of the sneers of her mother and sister, who felt reproached by her affection for their inmate, and were provoked by the sight of her splendid ornaments to insinuate that "Lucy knew what she was about"—" no bad thing to humor a hypochondriac who had a jewel-box at her elbow-for those who could stoop to it"—and the like.

Helen was still seated in the easy chair, just as Lucy had left her; for her attendant was sharing in the festivities of the evening, and at her last visit had been dismissed with an injunction not to come again till after midnight. But a glance assured the trembling and apprehensive girl, that the stillness of the invalid was not the quiet of sleep. The weary one was, indeed, at rest for ever, with a smile on her face that told of a tranquil and joyful departure. In her hand (and she was buried thus) was found a small miniature of a young officer, the face full of life, spirit, and beauty; at the back of this miniature were two locks of hair and a faded myrtle leaf, and the words, traced in silver

"FREDERICK ANCRAM to HELEN LAGARDE,

"Given to her on his and her

"twenty-first birth-day."