entered the room, to learn what was the matter, having met the Earl in rage, as she passed along the gallery.

"Alas!" said Gunilda, "I am ignorant of the cause of his disorder, and almost of where I am!-Adeliza, your arm for a support: I was made acquainted by my vassals, all was not right. Entering this apartment in quest of my dear Lord (who was ever before more calm, mild, and gentle) I found Florimund on the floor insensible, and the Earl departed: presently he returned, and murmuring an incoherent speech to himself, again left the room apparently in the most violent anger.-Ah! now it rushes on meOsric's prediction-we are lost!—we are lost!"

As she uttered these words, she fell back on a couch, senseless, as Florimund had done before. Though now awake from the swoon in which he had

been, still every thing was confusion, and nothing could he relate to Adeliza, he however assisted in supporting Gunilda.

Again Ethelbald made his appearance. "I've lost the epistle," he vociferates," and one of you have found it— it was the accursed proof. What is this I see, Gunilda now retired from herself -aye, this new passion creates such freaks for sport-where is the epistle? How is it you break on my apartment thus? You have found it and 'twas policy to conceal it from the world; give it me-nay, by the infernal powers but I will have it, though it were buried in the very inmost corner of your heart." Seizing Florimund again-" Stay! stay my This lunatic, they say, foretels us what will happen-busy must be his brain then now, if it but teem as mine does with what shall come to pass-he

arm!

can tell me of the scroll too? How! å maniac do all this? Jumble of absurdity! No matter, under the cloak of darkness to night I will adventure to his cave; there may be more in this character, than we find in every fool-yes, yes, I will away to night!"

. He again retired, leaving the parties in grief and amazement. By the assistance of stimulation Gunilda recovered, and they removed from the Earl's apart

ment.

Florimund was rendered truly miserable, as was Gunilda'; and Adeliza in the same cause as Florimund, was almost distracted; happy as the morning appeared, how sullen now the change! They attributed it to something wrong in state affairs.

All without the castle was shortly dark as Erebus, when Ethelbald, attended by

only one of his vassals, mounted his foam. ing charger, and rode off to the cavern of the mysterious Recluse.

The night proved one of those very tempestuous ones which in the summer often succeeds sultry weather, from the air becoming foul and over-heated in particular places. Violent thunder, lightning, and rain came on, and the wind blew with such unusual violence, the Earl and his attendant could with diffi culty keep the saddle.

Nothing tended to stay the inflamed imagination of Ethelbald. He had at

first been inclined to doubt what he could not help believing scarcely-the epistle -but immediately after finding them together in his apartment-Gunilda bathing Florimund's temples with every appearance of the tenderest affection-and her own insensibility succeeding, it cons

firmed him in an opinion all was foul as it represented itself.

They soon came within sight of the mouth of the cave. Ethelbald perceived the inside lighted by the means of a fire kindled in the middle, around which sat six persons regaling themselves; the sight, from the reflection of the blaze, on their pallid faces, half covered with beard, at first struck him with surprise; they heeded not the storm without, nor had they closed the entrance of the cave for shelter, but seemed a collection of beings unused to the luxury even of those iron

times.

"And stubborn as the mettle were the men !"

Ethelbald concluded he was right in his conjecture of there being something extraordinary in the character of Osrie,