miserable man; and I stood with my head bowed on my breast, and I cried, " From Dan even to Beersheba, all, all is barren."

My spirit raged against my kind; and I wished that all animate nature could be concentrated beneath my foot, that I might enjoy the ecstasy of crushing it into annihilation. And yet, such is the inconsistency of all human passions, that I, who could entertain these savage thoughts, who could ruthlessly raise my hand against the life of another, and as fearlessly stake my own on the flight of a bullet or the thrust of a sword, have yet stood trembling over the lake, the pistol, or the poison, contemplating the suicide which I sought, but dared not to commit!

How often, then, in my moments of calmer anguish, has the selfish and painful thought of the hours and days, the months and years which I had so fruitlessly consumed; of the love, devotion, and energy which I had so fruitlessly lavished, made me recall to myself, and feel in its fullest force and beauty, the exquisite pathos of that most touching speech which history records, "If I had served my God as I have served my king, he would not have forsaken me in these my gray hairs!"

But in the absorption of this painful recurrence to one of the severest trials of even my unhappy life, I must not omit to pay a tribute of affection to the memory of my fond sister. Oh, woman, woman! much calumniated being by the frivolous and the prosperous, in the hour of adversity we feel and admit the consciousness of your superiority. The lover assiduously attends the sick bed of his mistress; the son bewails and caresses his dying parent; and friend cleaves to friend with persevering regard: the surface is fair, but beneath is the lurking, secret, sometimes, perhaps, even half unconscious, hope of present or future personal benefit. Woman, woman alone, is capable of genuine unalloyed disinterestedness; and for her alone is reserved the high honour of proving that selflove is not the sole motor of existence.

Of this nature was my devoted sister: she adored virtue for virtue's sake; and really believed that the practice of it induced its own reward. She saw that I was miserable, far, far beyond the common apportionment of misery; and though, as I afterwards knew, she was at that very time sincerely attached to a neighbouring gentleman of high mind, birth, and character, who felt for her a more than equal affection, yet she cheerfully withdrew herself from the indulgence of this natural and fascinating feeling, to devote herself to my consolation; not as man may sometimes sacrifice to man in the rigid performance of a self-imposed duty, but in the beautiful unconsciousness of heavenly impulse.

While this beloved girl thus attempted, though in vain, to sooth the wretchedness of my state, the father of her who had indirectly caused it died; brought down to a premature grave by the misfortunes he had endured. In spite of her apparent hostility, all that related to her was still a subject of painful interest to me; and deeply did I lament the grief which I knew this fresh wound would occasion her.

A few weeks after this event, I had been sitting during several successive hours on the spot where we had first met; above me, was the intertwined foliage, and below me, was the rapid stream. Oh! bitterly painful was the chain of thought which this location suggested! And yet, with the infatuation of a morbid mind, pursuing the current of my miserable reflections, I continued to contrast the past with the present moment. Again and again I arrayed before myself all the minutest circumstances which related to that scene. I pictured her sunny smile, her beaming eye, her classic form in congenial union with her classic harp; and I dwelt on her sacred melody, until "Madre amata," and each plaintive note, appeared again to tremble on my ear. These were the reminiscences which I tortured myself by placing in comparison with my actual state.

Wrapt in the corroding anguish of this retrospection, I grew scarcely conscious of time or place, when suddenly a

sound of singular interest aroused me into attention; it seemed the half-suppressed sob of female grief. I listened intently; it was a woman's voice bewailing; and now, borne on the breeze, came a louder and a deeper burst of sorrow. Excited instantaneously by a feeling which I could not define, into a temporary self-oblivion, I stole cautiously along until I obtained a sight of the sufferer.

God of heaven! for the first time for four long years I stood within a few yards of the being I adored! I knew—I felt that it was she, though I saw not her face. Clinging to the next branch for support, I gazed with a full and bursting soul on the picture she presented—and oh! how piteous, and yet how beautiful it was!

She was seated beneath the trunk of an old and fantastic tree, the huge limbs of which inclining downwards, its thick foliage threw a soft shadow around her. A simple garment of white, not ample enough to conceal the graceful outline of her Phidian form, displayed a neck of dazzling and exquisitely voluptuous whiteness. One statue-like arm, bare to the shoulder, uniting all the fulness and polish of the purest marble with the softness of nature, hung by her side, while the hand, as perfect in symmetry as in hue, rested lightly on the turf. The other pressed her forehead, which, bowed to her knees, was concealed by the dishevelled hair that fell in heavy masses to the earth, where it lay in accumulated clusters of silken brilliancy. She sighed and moaned most piteously; and heart-rending were the sobs which momentarily convulsed her frame, as she rocked to and fro, with an irregular and painful motion, in the strong agony of her grief.

This was the spectacle that met my gaze; and had it been the fabled Medusa, I could not have been more quickly transformed into stone. My blood ceased to flow, my pulse to beat; and I stood a breathless statue, in all but the too vivid consciousness of pity, horror, and remorse.

Suddenly, with fearful vehemence, she cast herself on her knees, and clasping her hands, raised her lovely arms to

heaven in energetic prayer. I heard not her words; but the action and the expression denoted the homage of a broken and of a bleeding heart. She ceased; and her arms fell by her side, her head sank on her breast; the parted lips were motionless, and she seemed for a few moments in all the supineness of overwhelming despair: then, abruptly starting to her feet, she took one long lingering survey of earth and sky, and dashed herself into the stream. The agitated waters seized on her fragile form, and enveloped her in their gloomy depths; then tossing her to their surface, bore her rapidly along their raging course of foam and whirlpool.

What followed I know not, until I found myself standing on the brink of the stream, with her senseless body in my arms. In the madness of that moment, all reason was lost, and I had acted from intuitive and unconscious impulse.

I laid her on the grass, and essayed every remedy that art or affection could suggest to restore her to life, but in vain; till frantic with disappointment, in a paroxysm of grief, I threw myself by her side, and insanely kissed her lips, her eyes, and her forehead. The blood began to dance in my veins like burning alcohol, and the pent-up passions of years burst their unnatural confinement. I wound my arms around her unresisting form; I clasped her to my heart with the strong pressure of delirium, and yet I felt as though I only grasped a vision, a vacancy; substance itself was not enough substantial, reality not enough real, to glut the insatiate cravings of this fierce transport of blended love and grief. None, but those who may have possessed passions as ungovernable as mine, can picture the savage, the fearful delight which I derived from this clandestine embrace of what I then conceived to be the living and the dead!

There she lay before me; she, whom during four long years I had vainly endeavoured even to behold. There she lay; she, the pure, the rigid, the inflexible, without a tone or a gesture to check the wildest expression of my love. And yet, there was the form, and there was the eye, which had once

inspired me with the very intensity of that causeless fear which arises in the excess of passionate affection. "And now," I cried, raising her arm, and then allowing it to drop heavily on the earth," the ruled has become the ruler, the slave is converted into the despot. I, the trembler, have now but to command, and lo, I am obeyed. I have but to say, Do this, and it doeth it;" and again I raised the arm, and waved it in the air, in awful mockery of the action of life.

But a flood of tears, and bitter agonizing dejection, soon succeeded to this ebullition of all the ferocious and inhuman passions of my nature. I pressed her hand to my face, I bowed my head to the earth, and I wept like a child.

While wrapt in the bitterness of my grief, I thought that I felt a convulsive movement in the hand enclosed in mine. I gazed intently on her face, and distinctly discerned a quivering in the lips. In a transport of hope, I raised her in my arms, and bore her to my home. Medical assistance was immediately summoned; and before two hours had elapsed she was restored to life. Swayed by the advice of my sister, and by my own dread of the effect which the sight of me might produce on her in her still precarious state, I retired to my room, before she was sufficiently recovered to recognize the objects around her.

In anxiety and agitation, I was revolving this extraordinary event, speculating on its cause, and endeavouring to surmise its results, when a servant entered, and presented me with a letter which had just been brought by a messenger from the hall. I started in astonishment, and a thrill of painful expectation ran through my veins, as I gazed on her well-known hand. I observed that it bore the date of the previous day; and then, in doubt and fear, in hope and eagerness, with a trembling hand, and an unsteady eye, proceeded to read that which follows.

"When this last confession of a fated sinner shall be revealed to you, the spirit of her who penned it shall be hover