'But you may come to see me,' said Mrs. Cleveland, laughing; Will you?'

Lindsay joyfully caught at the invitation ;—and when he did come, the smile, the blush, and the sparkling eye with which Caroline received him, were heavy punishments for his disobedience.

In happiness the most perfect and unmixed which this world can bestow, the lovers spent this evening, and the next morning, and the four fol lowing weeks of uninterrupted bliss. On what day, or hour, Lindsay drew from the blushing Caroline the promise to be his, we cannot precisely say. We think ourselves, however, justified in asserting it could not be very long after his declaration, because we know that a few days only after that period, the departing courier for England was charged with a letter from Lindsay to Lady St. Clair, to ask her consent to their union;-at the same time, acknowledging he should do his best to persuade Caroline to marry him without awaiting it.

Of Lady St. Clair's consent, indeed, it seemed quite clear there could be no doubt. It was her most anxious wish that her daughter should 'marry well,'-by which she meant to rank, fortune, and fashion; all of which were united in the person of Horace Lindsay, only son and heir of Lord Montfort, and himself of distinguished celebrity in fashionable life. Certainly the qualities which had won her daughter's love, would not have much value in the mother's eyes; yet her vanity could not fail to be gratified that a man of such brilliant talents, and so pre-eminently recherché should be her son in law.

Caroline, however, would not marry without actually receiving her mother's consent; although

she could not help acknowledging, with Mrs. Cleveland, that it was 'mere matter of form.' Moreover, she was determined not to marry until Mrs. Cleveland had perfectly recovered from her accouchement, which was now almost daily expected to take place; so that all her lover's powers of persuasion and eloquence-and they were not small-were essayed in vain, in order to persuade her to marry without waiting for these events. There was not, however, much time to lose, at least so Lindsay had suddenly discovered. The necessity for his being in India, and consequently for being married, having prodigiously increased ever since that day on which he had met Caroline in the Chamber of Portraits, in the Gallery.

He had written to his father to announce his intended marriage, and intended journey with his bride overland to India, by way of Rome, Naples, Greece, Egypt, and the Deserts a journey to which, with all its hardships and difficulties, Caroline looked forward with delight. But she was never destined to take it. We must not, however, anticipate.

Lindsay had no consent to await. He had long ago received from Lord Montfort full permission, with one exception (that of Miss Hamilton) to marry whom he pleased. He was also furnished with full powers to make adequate settlements, with the approbation of his nearest relation, Lord Lumbercourt.

The settlements were now prepared, all the necessary arrangements made, even the wedding clothes were ready ;-yet sad forebodings at times filled Lindsay's mind, that something would occur to prevent the marriage. Notwithstanding those moments of gloom, however, which one smile from

Caroline would instantly dispel, Lindsay enjoyed happiness as uninterrupted as this world can bestow. But as uninterrupted happiness, though extremely pleasant to experience, is extremely dull to describe, we shall pass over these halcyon days which now shone upon the lovers, like a bright gleam of sunshine between the storms.

During the interminable conversations in which the lovers, like all lovers, spent their time, Caroline learnt, what indeed she before believed, and what the sagacious reader has long since discovered-that Lindsay was the author of the serenade at Interlachen. He was at that time staying in a cottage near the waterfall on the Lake of Brientz, and in returning through the valley of Interlachen, from a mountain excursion, on the evening of her arrival with the Clevelands, he stopped to look at the crowd of waltzers assembled at the inn, among whom, to his great amazement, he beheld Caroline and Lady Hunlocke. In the subsequent moonlight walk of the two friends, he was gazing at Caroline behind the trees; and overhearing her express the most animated desire to hear the famous singing girls, he immediately engaged the four fine peasant singers of Brientz, in whose house he lodged, and who of course had come down to the fair -to sing their national songs, beneath her window. In order to indulge the expression of his own feelings, he hastily wrote some verses, adapted to a beautiful air of Mozart's, which he got Paccherotti, the Italian music master of Berne, to sing to the accompaniment of his guitar.

He, too, was the spy who the next day lurked in the woods at Giesbach, whither he had proceeded along the shore, as the boat which contained Caroline rowed up the lake; and having established his

signals of intelligence with his friends, the peasant singers, he had made them ask her to sing his favourite song, that he might once more-and as he then believed for the last time-have the delight of hearing her, and, unseen himself, of beholding her. It was of course his voice which echoed the dying fall' of hers from the woods, and prompted her to chase him to the very verge of the woody precipice, down which he descended at the hazard of his neck, to effect his escape.

6

All these circumstances, which had so strongly excited her amazement and curiosity at the time, were satisfactorily explained; but when she archly inquired into the business of importance' which had carried him so hastily from the Robbers' cave to the Lake of Lugano, instead of returning, as he had promised, to Cadenabbia ;-he hesitated, and at length said, that he could not satisfy her on this point, because the secret was another's, not his own, and he had given a solemn and unconditional promise not to reveal it to any human being; therefore, though he knew it would be as safe with her as with himself, he could not violate his word.'

Caroline gaily assured him she had not even a wish to know this secret; and, indeed, had asked him the question only with the mischievous view of rallying him upon his fear of meeting her-which she had believed to be the true and sole cause of his hasty flight to Lugano.

Lindsay, one day, shewed her the Indian scarf which she had lost on the Furca ;-and which, being found carefully concealed on his person when he was arrested at Sajlas, and stained with blood-had very nearly been the means of hanging him. He enquired most minutely into every particular of

her meeting with the extraordinary man who had found it on his return down the Furca, and had given it to him; and he seemed deeply interested by her account of him; but when she questioned him in return, as to what he knew of him, he merely said he had met with him accidentally in the Grisons, and that he had given him the scarf, probably,' he added, 'because he did not value it quite so much as I did.'

Caroline's curiosity was still unsatisfied, but Lindsay said he could give no further account of him,' and turned the conversation to another subject.

CHAPTER LII.

A DISCOVERY.

Ah me for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth!

Miser, chi mal oprando si confida

SHAKSPEARE

Ch'ognor star debba il maleficio occulto:
Che quando ogni altro taccia, intorno grida
L'aria e la terra istessa in ch'e sepulto:
E Dio fa spesso che l'peccato guida

Il peccator, poi ch 'alcun dì gli ha indulto ;
Che se medesmo, senza altrui richiesta,
Inavvedatamente manifesta.

Ariosto, Canto VI.

ONE day, about a month after the letters were