receive him on his return, and attend Villetta's wedding too; and that you told the Duke to consider you merely as if you were a sister, which was the oddest interdiction from natural simplicity he ever heard; and that, but for these unaccountable circumstances, he should have loved you himself, as he did his own sweet cousin Ellen, your grandmamma. I had to defend you from the alleged unfeeling coldness; but Morgan shook his head, and remarked, something was wrong, for that Lorevaine's letters were all written in sad distaste of life.

66

"I wish I had not to preach for you, dear Ellen, in defence; for he is very obstinate on this occasion. Can you not remedy the error? Badinage apart, I am sorry you do not wait and see the Duke, which is, on my part, very disinterested; for every hour is counted till the day of our meeting; but for Lorevaine, I would you might delay! Surely 'tis strange, as Morgan states.

"My father is now in possession of the farm

at

ten miles from hence.

"Bon soir !

"Your affectionate

"FANNY."

CHAPTER XXII.

"Le malheur a cela de bon qu'il rapproche les hommes, qu'il leur fait sentir le besoin qu'ils ont les uns des autres, qu'il les rend plus sensibles, et par conséquent meilleurs. Je ne crois pas le riche naturellement dur ou méchant, mais il est difficile de s'attendrir sur des maux dont on n'a pas d'idée."

P. LE B.

FANNY WArdley to Ellen.

"I RE-COMMENCE, my dear Ellen, with a palpitating heart and nervous hand, hardly knowing where to begin, or how to embody my ideas distinctly; but I will tell you the whole of yesterday as regularly as I can.

"We met at nine- Harley, the Morgans, Montague, I, our John, and Rover, who carried, with Harley's man, some tools, and all

that might be needed. Morgan had not his usual placid, even tone of mind, but evidently laboured under some unpleasant presentiment. He took Charles's arm, as if he anticipated losing him.

"When we arrived at the Chapel-door he was pale, and agitated more and more, and looked so ill! and, as we paraded through the corridor, underneath the high, arched ceiling, as the richly-painted glass windows reflected their deeply-glowing colours, it really was enough to make one think. And we were all as mute as possible, even to Harley himself. Simultaneously they paused before Sir Isaac's tomb, which, as you remember, is very grand in sculpture. The little knight lay chiselled in his winding-sheet, rather peeping from its folds, as if looking at everything, though seeing nothing, cunning pourtrayed in his countenance Nil desperandum,' the motto.

“After reading the epitaph of his former greatness, and commenting on mortality and

immortality, Harley grew impatient for the door underneath, which leads down to the burial-place, to be unclosed. Down we all crept, holding the damp and slippery rail. It seemed as a dream of the night; and though we did not communicate our thoughts, they all tended to one subject, as we gazed at the mouldering coffins where the bodies were arranged. The lamp lent its gloomy lustre from John's unsteady hand. We saw nothing but these humiliating relics of departed grandeur, and could dimly distinguish in the distance the increased pomp and heraldry of the more ancient race emblazoned on the coffins. When Harley opened Isaac's coffin, the lead was thin and bent, and when that was cleared away, the body itself appeared a short, thick-set muscular frame, wrapped in cerecloth; the face was uncovered by Harley, and quite perfect still, and resembling his picture, only of a darker colour. Next to him was his Lady wife, a long, bony figure—a skeleton now.