short, at last, I told her what she knew,-that I loved her ;-and she owned what I hoped,--that she loved me. I would not give you any hint of this till I could tell it you as a fact, lest the hope should end in disappointment.

But all this time I am writing to a man conceived to be defunct. It is true that you have not, till of late, been incontestibly proved to be dead, but still you were not known to be alive; for nobody had ever heard from you for such a length of time, that every body wondered what could have become of you,-till, at last, a letter arrived from your servant, written in doleful dumps,' stating, that after you had been missing some weeks, he had discovered that you had been carried off by banditti from some den in Switzerland, and murdered. A further confirmation of these horrid tidings afterwards arrived from him, dated Milan, stating that high rewards had been offered in vain for your production, --dead or alive;-and that you were most unques tionably deceased. Colonel Cleveland wrote to the same effect. So that there could be no doubt of the fact. Old Hamilton firmly believed it. I rejoiced at it, and shall owe you a debt of gratitude so long as I live, for having departed this life so opportunely; for, but for this fortunate occurrence of your timely--or, as others consider it, your untimely-decease,-I should not have been mar

ried.

At first old Hamilton had positively refused his consent. For although he might reasonably have thought, that, as his daughter never would marry you without your father's consent, even when she did love you,--she was not very likely to do so now, when she did not love you, and when she did love me; and when, moreover, she positively declared

she never would marry you at all;-yet the old flint still held out, and still obstinately clung to the expectation, that he would at last accomplish this match with you, so long the favourite object of his ambition, but which no one concerned any longer wished, except himself. But when he learnt the news of your death, his final hope was flat despair;'--and considering, that as my father's health was in the most precarious state, and that if he died, I could not, in decency, marry for some time -and that delays are dangerous--and that Susan Hamilton might never marry at all-and that she was thirty-and, that after all, £10,000 a year was not to be despised ;--he, at length, ungraciously gave his consent; and he is now as anxious to accomplish the marriage as he was before to prevent it.

Next Tuesday, unless you should unadvisedly return from the dead to forbid it, I shall be a married

man.

Few things, my dear friend, could be at this mo ment more unacceptable to me than the news of your being alive. I pray heaven no such unpleasant intelligence may arrive. Not that I should object to your living at any reasonable time, but at this moment, it is not to be endured. But seriously -I have not the smallest uneasiness on your account. I know you too well to be astonished at any vagaries you may take. I conclude that you have gone upon some erratic or Quixotic expedition, and hid yourself, after some romantic manner, in the mountains. That you are buried among the Alps, I believe; but not that you are dead. Banditti might have robbed you-but they could have no imaginable motive for murdering you nor is there the smallest proof, according to your sapient

servant's own account, that you ever fell into the hands of any banditti at all.

So write to me, my good fellow.-Arise from the dead and speak your epitaph! Tell me you are alive and merry,-rejoicing that the yoke which weighed so heavily on your neck is laid upon mine.

One little caution, however, let me give you. You have slipped your neck, almost by a miracle, out of this noose. Be cautious how you slip it into another. Never expect again--when you are prepared for execution-that some good natured friend will come to be tucked up in your stead-like me. I am, dear Lindsay,

Always yours,

JOHN HEATHCOTE.

With what sensations Lindsay read this letter, may be imagined. That he was free-was indeed unhoped, unexpected happiness--or rather a relief from misery. Like the fettered wretch, when his chains are suddenly loosed and fall from him, new life seemed diffused through his frame. Yet he felt that freedom itself, lost more than half its solace, because he could not barter it for a new bondage ;-and with a bitter sigh he reflected, that but for the unfortunate engagement which had enthralled his liberty, she might have been bound to him by the dearest and tenderest of ties. But now (intolerable thought!) she was for ever lost to him-and destined to another. She was the betrothed bride of Breadalbane.

Her

Yet he could scarcely convince himself that it was Breadalbane whom she really loved, agitation on discovering who was supporting her when she fainted in the forest, and the tone in

which she uttered the exclamation on recognize ing him, evinced feelings of no common interest. Above all, there was a language in her eye, and an expression in the few persuasive words she had used at Cadenabbia to deter him from pursuing the robbers, that involuntarily betrayed a secret scarcely known to herself; and the conviction that he himself was dear to her, had at that moment flushed his cheek and filled his heart with transport. But he now believed that he had deceived himself, and mistaken gratitude and esteem- and the interest arising from the equivocal and unexplained circumstances in which he had seen her placedfor preference and love. For he was quite sure that she never would have promised her hand to Breadalbane, without having also given her heart;

-nor was it surprising that, in the opportunities he enjoyed during her attendance upon him in the parsonage at Grindelwald, he had obtained her affections.

Lindsay therefore formed the sensible determination to banish her from his remembrance,-a resolution which he could not be charged with forgetting, since he thought of it from morning till night, so true it is, that

Vouloir oublier quelqu'une, c'est y penser.

Under deep depression which he could not shake off, Lindsay remained at Florence; and though he went listlessly through the established round of life-rode his English horse in the Cascino, criticised the works of art in the gallery, made his appearance at operas and parties and lived like, and with the rest of the world,-his soul seemed absent and torpid,-the colouring of every thing was sad

and changed-all enjoyments and pursuits were insipid and listless-and he could have said with our immortal poet, that

Man delights not me, nor woman neither.

CHAPTER XLIX.

MEETING AND PARTING..

O for a horse with wings!

I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth,
In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant;"
And in dimension and the shape of nature

A gracious person;-but yet I cannot love him;
He might have took his answer long ago.

SHAKSPEARE.

In the mean time Breadalbane pursued his rapid journey by the way of Bologna, Ferrara, and Pa-, dua, to Venice: pushing forward with the headlong speed of a true Milor' Inglese; so that the unlucky M'cMuckleman found himself, like ano、 ther Tantalus, mocked with the cup of enjoyment continually presented to his lips, without the power to taste it ;-for the post horses did not see less of the cities through which they rattled, than did the travellers attached to their heels.

At Fusina, Breadalbane found it a relief to his feverish spirits, to exchange the whirl of the rattling carriage for the soft stillness of the gondola,