ing emotions was too great, and the intended pardon was lost in bursting sighs, that seemed to wring rather than relieve his tortured bosom.-The exigence of the moment demanding a prompt resolution, he had the miserable sufferers conveyed for succour to the nearest village; but however gentle the motion of the carriage, it was too much for the exhausted frame of lord Oglethorpe: he died a few minutes after they arrived at the farm where they had requested shelter; nor did it appear, from the moment of his most painful recognition, that he had an interval of consciousness.-The effect of the removal was different upon Anna. Though her bodily sufferings were exquisite, her senses returned.-"Oh, Lascelles, I have not deserved this of you!" were the first words she uttered, on seeing him assiduously watching by her bed. To this a frenzy fever, increased by her remorse, succeeded; and though the wound she had received was pronounced

pronounced but slight, the violence of this malady soon precluded all hope of recovery.

For three weeks Lascelles remained by the agonized penitent, who, in the alternations of reason and delirium, only experienced a variety of wretchedness. Alive to her awful situation alone, it was now that her injured husband appeared as her spiritual consoler; and while he watched every turn of her bodily complaint with active solicitude, he seized every interval of reason to infuse consolation into her mind. He spoke to her of the infinite mercies of her Creator; he assured her that penitence so deep as hers would be accepted; and, while he held in his arms the little Celestina, repeated the forgiveness he had granted on the recovery of his

treasure.

"Oh, fool and blind that I have been!" murmured the miserable Anna-" blind to such worth-such excellence! And now to owe all to thee to see thee stoop to such

such a wretch as I am an angel's pity in an angel's form!and I could leave thee!" She would then relapse into the agonies of frenzy, and, after maintaining the ineffectual struggle till nature was exhausted, expired, calling a blessing upon her husband's and her daughter's head.

In the intervals of her disorder, Anna informed her husband of the motives that guided her, and the means she had used to carry off Celestina. These he promised to communicate, at some future period, to Horatio. The mind of Lascelles appeared to have received a severe shock, and to remain under a cruel depression, from this abrupt termination of a connexion which had been productive of little but misery to him.

Little as the Lulworths had really loved or regarded the luckless Anna, yet, after upholding her through life as an angel, they owed it to their own consistency to mourn her in death as a saint; and the interruption this necessity produced in Mrs. Somerville's

As

Somerville's usual amusements rendered her temper more unequal than ever. she was constantly complaining of Julia, and Julia never recriminated, the easytempered Horatio at length concluded that she who always complained must, in reality, be the aggrieved person. He made no further attempts to reconcile his wife and sister, but proved to the latter, by the negligence of his manners, more than the most cutting words could do it, that his opinion of her character was greatly altered. After a shamefully-short seclusion, Mrs. Somerville, who could not endure retirement, again made her appearance in the gay world; but this made no difference in the feelings of Julia. Gradually deprived of every thing that makes life valuable, this amiable and warm-hearted being, who was formed to diffuse happiness over the most extensive circle, might literally be said to drag on a kind of living death. Amusement was become painful to her sick heart and drooping spirits. In

the

the solitude of her own chamber, by her now-neglected fire, it was become Julia's highest enjoyment to sit for hours, in mournful contemplation of the present, as contrasted with the past, while retrospection was aided by the portraits with which her room was hung-portraits of cherished relatives, now mouldering in the dust. Fixing her eyes on the features of her sisters-features of which the painter had in vain tried to embody the fleeting loveliness-" Oh, why am I not with you?" she passionately exclaimed; "why are not the years yet in store for me transferred to some one to whom life is valuable? Though young, I have tasted of nothing but its bitterness. Few and evil have been my days; and even now I am ready-oh, how ready, to resign them!"

From these thoughts Julia was roused by a summons to accompany Mrs. Somerville to the Park. Already indisposed for the task of the toilet, she thought that, this day, she looked remarkably ill. While