trembling step-the fading and reclining form -all things which men dread in this solemn accomplishment, gave me hope and a wild magic joy. Her life was the game--the chance was mine; and every moment of her lingering doom defrauded me of the stake. She prayed to be alone. I dreaded lest even now the hazard should end in illusion. She had not risen from her bed for many days. I left her it might be, perhaps, to some dying prayer. I watched through the narrow crevice. I saw her rise and walk to an ebony cabinet which she had always near her. It had been her father's. She took up his portrait-kissed it; and kneeling down, seemed for a while absorbed in devotion -as if imploring his spirit to look down upon her ere she died. She rose, and had shed no tears. She deposited beneath the portrait a paper, which she had kept till now beneath her pillow; and then returning to her rest, lay down again as if to move no more. When I re-entered, she reposed in the silence of the dead! One moment I did look on that face which had been turned on me in its young bloom of love. "Not yet had death's effacing fingers swept the bright trace where beauty

lingers." I touched the marble brow with my lips, and would have given worlds to weep. It was in vain; the fountain of all holy feelings had been dry too long. I took up the paper which had been her dying care from the drawer of the cabinet. It was the last testament of her earthly affairs. She knew not how poor I was; and her portion of this world's substance was bequeathed only to her child. An instant I hesitated. There is a religion in the writing of the dead I trembled to violate; but my necessities poured upon my sight like evil shadows. I could not bear shame. I destroyed the will-tore it into a thousand atoms-burned it in the flame, and the smoke rose over the fair beautiful characters that were last traced by her hand. I heard as it were a low and rustling sound, as of one rising in the chamber. The curtains of the testator were closed. drew them gently, softly, as if to wake no slumber from that pillow. All was not past. The form of her countenance was changed; it was bright, almost beatific. Folding her arms around me, and looking as though she did not like this world could think me lost, she whispered, "Pardon, pardon!" The expression of

I

that last feeling remained long-as if it had been incorruptible-upon her features. I wept as I had never wept before. I prayed as if she had brought me the legacy of penitence, and faith, and hope, from the grave-I knelt that night by the remains of Mary Everard.

The lesson of those moments to me never can be forgotten. I gave her the rites of the Church in whose bosom she was nourished, and the solemnities of Protestant burial. Her dying request has been fulfilled, and her child is the heir of her faith, her name, and possessions. May he be the inheritor of her example and her hope. I have not changed the religion of my youth. I have not yet tried its power in solitude and ashes. In the cell of some of its far distant convents I hope to wear away the fading remainder of my days; and though in the varied trials of my life I have not proved its truth, yet in its dim sequestered aisles of penance I may find comfort from its holy instructions, and, if such there be, safety from its errors.

There is a small tablet over a grave in the Protestant cemetry at Paris: "Marie est in

terrée ici." There is something that affects the heart as we read the simple legend. It matters not to the world what form reposes there. The few to whom its remembrance is sacred will visit the tomb, and feel the memorial deeper from that one word of love and endearment. It is the Christian name-the Christian affection surviving language. Did we but think that long ere it is illegible the inscription of our family and place ceases to interest, and that the stranger will turn away from the title and moral, we should look only to such emblems as will associate the thought of an immortal existence, even with the decaying lineaments in the tomb; and recal to the few who love us, what we were once on earth, by the name we received as inheritors of heaven.

Pride and love would require no other tribute than the words,

CHAPTER XVII.

SHE slept; suspended thought and sensibility mingled with the invisible properties of life. She lay in the sinless repose which refreshes the weary spirit-renews to age the dreams of youth and beauty, and changes in its figurative rest our weakness into strength. During sleep the fever left her; and when she awoke there came over her mind, and heart, and frame, the soft and gentle breath of renovation. The anguish of excessive faintness presently subsided; but for many days she had long slumbers, and even her waking hours were passed in a deep, serene, and dreamy quiet, as if nature were receiving compensation for its past melancholy watches, and collecting its powers anew for the warfare and the race. At length she was restored to her husband's love as before; and he knew the unutterable joy we feel when