Zoé's voice would once have roused Algernon to any enterprise, or deterred him from any undertaking; but though he loved her better than all things else, she was distant, pleasure present. Her melancholy forebodings cast a gloom over his mind, and at length grew so distasteful, that he resolved to adopt a new language in his correspondence with her; pretending to be influenced by her advice, he promised to be on his guard against the allurements which she dreaded, assuring her that, sensible of the errors into which young men might be led, he designed to be very particular in his selection of acquaintance, should he feel himself so far engaged to accompany his friends to the Continent, that he could not break through the arrangement. The heart is of easy faith, when it wishes to believe, and the innocent Zorilda, who knew nothing of the world, except what she had heard of its snares from the instructor of her youth, seized with joy on the happy omen; and the roses of health again bloomed on her pallid cheek, with all the freshness of spring.

"Beloved Algernon," she would exclaim, while training the jessamine which was taught to decorate his favourite seat, or visiting with thoughtful tenderness the animals committed to her care, "you will never be led away from these pure delights. The blandishments of vice shall vainly attempt to dazzle, and its wicked artifices to entangle, my Algernon, who will return unpolluted by the influence of bad example. These sweet flowers will have new charms for him, and I shall proudly deliver up my trust when I show him these birds of brilliant wing, his dogs, and all his play-fellows so grown, so beautified, under my guardianship."

Zorilda's hours now glided swiftly as the weaver's shuttle. She was full of employment, and Algernon was the inspiring object of all she did or imagined; improving daily in loveliness of face and form, and glowing with animation, she seemed by her presence to cheer creation, and, like the blessed sun, to dispel every cloud that gathered on the horizon.

While Algernon was away from home, his mother, who never reflected much on any thing, the immediate pressure of which on her external senses did not force itself upon her mind, resumed her cheerfulness, and finding in Zorilda all that the sweetest filial duty could bestow, treated her once more with as much affection as her selfish nature could feel. Mr. Hartland loved her as a daughter, and amongst the dependents of every degree she was considered as an angel of light who had descended from Heaven, to shower mercy and consolation on the poor, the sick, and the afflicted. As Zorilda avoided strangers with the greatest anxiety, she was seldom seen, and as she never left Henbury, except to go to the parish church, in which a curtain round the pew where she sat, and a veil on her bonnet, afforded all the privacy which she sought, it is not surprising that the fame of her beauty had not gone much abroad.

While Algernon was absent too, the motive for seeing company being removed, the family assumed more than their usual habits of economy, to enable Mrs. Hartland to indulge her vanity, in providing for the excesses of her son, whose constantly increasing demands were founded on false pretences; and his parents were imposed upon, by a belief that they were aiding his advancement in life, while in reality they ministered to every species of extravagance. Zorilda was the presiding genius, who by her skill and activity achieved all Mrs. Hartland's purposes without compromising a single duty; and though every expense was regulated with the strictest attention, the interests of those whose claims on benevolence had ever been accredited, were not forgotten; and this admirable girl contrived to transfer to her friends the praises which were due to herself alone. The cultivation of her mind was her sole recreation: a fine talent for drawing, diversified her amusements, and had it not been for the thorn at the heart, which busy occupation sometimes concealed, but which no effort could extract, her life might have presented as near a resemblance to what may be imagined of higher spirits, whose existence is compounded of love and knowledge, as had ever been witnessed on earth.

Algernon went abroad with his friend the Marquess without returning home to take leave; and Mrs. Hartland revelled in all the novelty of an heroic act of self-denial, which would bring about the accomplishment of her object in the natural death, as she prognosticated, of that attachment which was the bane of her ambition.

It was many years since Mrs. Gordon, the younger sister of Mrs. Hartland, had visited her friends in England; and low spirits occasioned by her son's departure having been urged by his mother as an additional plea in her present invitation, it obtained a favourable answer; and the pleasure of a family meeting in prospect in some degree compensated for the privation to which she had condemned herself; while Zorilda, whose eye governed every department, found in making preparation for the coming guests a source of added employment which helped to banish painful thoughts. She had heard much of Mrs. Gordon from Mr. Playfair, and longed, with eager curiosity, to see with her own eyes one of whom he spoke with such enthusiastic admiration, and of whom she could only remember how kind she was to a gipsey child. At that time Zorilda was a prodigal of friendship, because she did not want any larger store than Henbury supplied; but she felt now, that if indeed Mrs. Gordon were to prove such a being as she had been represented, her society would be a jewel above all price.

The Gordons arrived, and Mr. Playfair's portrait was not exaggerated. Much has been said against those sudden and sentimental attachments, to which the female sex is accused of being especially addicted: and we are not desirous of weakening the force of ridicule, which is justly ascribable to vows of eternal friendship made at sight; but there is a sympathy between kindred souls, which, as it will always exist in nature, we may be permitted to hope will escape condemnation, and never be confounded with the transitory illusions of romance. Such a sympathy almost immediately drew Mrs. Gordon and Zorilda to each other, and every day's experience confirmed the mutual attraction. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon inspired the idea of having been shut up in an ark with a chosen band, and "all appliances and means to boot," for preserving every intellectual and social energy in constant play, untainted by the vices or the follies of a surrounding world.

It may be imagined by some, who hold a widely extended intercourse with mankind to be requisite to liberal views and enlightened understandings, that such a description must necessarily imply narrow minds, and limited information; but nothing could be more mistaken than such a conclusion. In our present state of civilization, dark and secluded must be that recess into which books and opinions do not find their way, and perhaps it may be truly said of various kinds of knowledge, that it is not unusually found in an inverse proportion with the distance from its source. Whatever may be the truth, as a general remark, the fact was, that in the particular instance with which we are concerned at present, the Scotch visitors who now added to the family circle at Henbury, appeared to Zorilda to be no other than the genii of some more favoured planet, invested with the keys of all those sacred stores from which the best possessions of mankind are derived. Her clear intelligence and brilliant fancy, which had never before "sparkled in collision," now expanded in a congenial atmosphere, and the innocent Zoé was surprised by the powers of comprehension awakened in her mind by the talisman of such society as she enjoyed for the first time in her short life.

Mr. Playfair had been a mine of intellect, but the parental interest which he felt for his pupil, induced caution in the encouragement of those quick sensibilities which he foresaw would prove the bane of her happiness. He had therefore always led her to such studies as exercised her reason more than her imagination; and had endeavoured to repress every tendency to excitement in a character of such refined texture and vivid glow, that he dreaded its future contact with a world in which so little would be found in sympathy with its delicate structure. What rapture, was it not natural to think, did Zorilda now experience in meeting with her beau ideal of female friendship in Mrs. Gordon, of whom she became almost a worshipper!

No human beings, born in the Antipodes of each other, could be more entirely unlike than Mrs. Hartland and her sister. The latter, who was by some years the younger of the two, had lived from her childhood with an uncle who resided in Edinburgh, and held a high place amongst the literati of his time. Under the auspices of this relation, who was equally distinguished by his learning and worth, Eugenia Robinson had enjoyed advantages which few young females possess, and of which still fewer at the present day, are inclined to avail themselves when offered. Mingling continually in company with men whose conversation bore testimony to their genius and pursuits, she had opportunity for indulging a thirst after all manner of solidly valuable acquisition, without, happily for herself, incurring any of those stupid taunts with which ignorance so frequently and successfully frightens away a spirit of inquiry, or on the other hand attracting that sickly applause, which, by flattering human weakness, often substitutes a contemptible vanity for the genuine desire of improvement in mental cultivation.

Eugenia Robinson was not set up as a prodigy, nor was there the slightest parade in her education; but she lived in a capital where it is still the fashion to wear heads and hearts, and where she therefore found that she might think without being called a Blue, and feel without being styled a romancer. In the midst of that society which her uncle brought together at his house, Eugenia met Mr. Gordon, and after a time, marriage cemented a union which had long been acknowledged by reciprocal preference, before it was confirmed at the altar. Never did Hymen's torch light home a happier pair, and the flame is not extinguished, but burns more purely and brightly in the tranquil atmosphere of domestic life, than while it was hurried to and fro, along the varying currents of hope and fear.

The wise man's prayer, "give me neither poverty nor riches," was granted to them, and retiring to Drumcairn, a pleasant spot in Aberdeenshire, they realized all that poets dream of conjugal felicity. They had no children, but this was not a source of repining, first because they firmly believed that every dispensation of Heaven is ordered by unerring judgment, while that of mortal man is fallible and short sighted; and secondly, because they were happy in each other, and there was no craving void for vain wishes to occupy. Their days were passed in the exercise of practical benevolence, not wasted in the busy idleness of fashionable life; and their amusements were inspired by rural objects, music, in which Mrs. Gordon was a proficient, and an excellent library, which was constantly augmenting its stores, by the addition of every new book worthy of a place upon its shelves.

Contentment, activity, and independence brought forth all their fruit at Drumcairn, and Zorilda, who had felt through secret instinct that such things might be, though she had never seen them, opened her whole soul to the genial influence of her new associates, as the butterfly unfolds its radiant wing to the sunbeam.

Mrs. Gordon understood her thoughts before they found expression, and entered into all her feelings while yet she believed them hidden in her own breast; sympathizing or repressing, correcting or informing, as acquaintance increased, and occasion suggested; but the grateful heart of our gentle Zoé was not estranged from its early ties by the novelty of that enchantment which an ardent mind experiences in gazing, for the first time, on its own image in the bosom of a friend; like that of Eve reflected from the clear waters of Paradise, when newly awakened from sleep, she approached with timid step, now advancing, now retiring, to grasp the lovely form which gave a second self to view. Zorilda, in the retirement of her chamber, often breathed the silent murmur, "Oh why do sisters differ thus?" but her heart replied, that Mrs. Hartland deserved her gratitude, and she was Algernon's mother. Her innocent prayers were then sent up to Heaven for strength to perform her course in the path of duty, and she would fall into a rosy slumber, dreaming of happy virtuous love and devoted friendship.

The character of Mr. Gordon resembled that of her friend and tutor, which quickly secured him a place in her affections. She was charmed with the clearness of his views, and the straight forward integrity of his practice; but the more Zorilda was captivated by society thus congenial, the more sedulously did she endeavour, by redoubled attention, to avoid exhibiting to her benefactors how much they lost by comparison with their guests. Every moment which could be snatched from those cares which Zorilda never neglected, was employed in cultivating the present opportunity of enjoyment; and Mrs. Hartland secretly triumphed in the fulfilment of her project. She saw, in the mutual attachment of her sister and her ward, the future feasibility of sending the latter off to Scotland, should Algernon's travels not have effaced all dangerous recollections; and in this view she had for the first time an appearance of unselfishness by promoting a companionship which afforded gratification to those around her. Pride prevented her from divulging her fears.

"If," said she to herself, "my son is cured of his childish folly, there is no use in exposing it. If, on the other hand, he should relapse into any nonsense, it will be time enough to act. 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.' I might restrain my sister's affection for Zoé were I to clog it with future demands, so I will let things work their own way, and take advantage of results as occasion may require."

This was Mrs. Hartland's policy; Zorilda had other motives for her silence, and a tremulous delicacy of feeling prevented her from reposing in the bosom of her dearest friend those hopes and fears which disturbed the serenity of her own; but Mrs. Gordon knew human nature, and her sister's individual character. The first taught her to believe it very possible that her nephew might not be proof against such attractions as those of her young friend, while the latter assured her that nothing could be less consonant with the wishes of his mother than that Zorilda should exercise any influence over his affections. These abstract surmises were brought to clearer testimony by a conversation after dinner one day, which turned on genealogy.

"There is nothing like a good family," said Mrs. Hartland; "even money is not of so much consequence; and for my part I would rather see my only child dead at my feet than that he should bring disgrace upon himself and all belonging to him by marrying any one of low birth."

Though Zorilda had resolved to command her actions, she had no power to control her looks; and the sudden transition from a crimson blush to deadly pale, expressed more than she wished to communicate, and revealed sentiments which no force of language could contradict.

"My love," said Mrs. Gordon, as she rose hastily from her chair, and went towards Zorilda, "I told you that you had walked too far. I saw that you were greatly fatigued. You are quite overcome now by the heat of this room, and must come with me directly into the fresh air." Zoé pressed the hand which was extended towards her, and accompanied her kind conductress.

When relieved from the restraint of observation on the part of those who knew all her little history, she burst into tears; and when the soothing caresses of Mrs. Gordon had tranquillized her spirits sufficiently to permit of utterance, her first anxiety was to explain her emotion without touching on its principal spring.

"Oh!" exclaimed Zorilda, "what a misfortune, is it not? to be thus a prey to the most agonizing sensations upon a subject altogether beyond the scope of my power to elucidate or control! I am ashamed of my weakness, of my rebellion against that Almighty Being who decrees my trials, who my bible teaches me to believe, 'loveth whom He chasteneth, and scourgeth the son whom he would save.' Is it a crime to be thus forlorn; the sport of every wind, or like the wreck of some sea-foundered skiff, a severed fragment floating on the ocean of life, unknown, unclaimed, unacknowledged? Alas! I have tried to school my warring soul, and bend it to its burthen. I have prayed to Him who can alone strengthen our frail nature, but I have prayed in vain; I am not heeded. I am an outcast in Heaven as on earth."

"Beloved child," replied the tender friend, who now sought to pour balsam on a wounded spirit, "you pray not yet in fulness of trust; you importune, but you do not confide. It is sometimes permitted us to understand the discipline inflicted by Him who desireth not the death of a sinner, who will never allow us to be tempted beyond our power to endure. In Heaven there are no pedigrees; God will have your whole heart, give it freely to Him who gives you all. Bless Him for the dangers which you have escaped; His mercy has snatched you from the perils which encompassed your infant head, and a day may come——"

"Never! never!" answered Zorilda, "it is a vain hope. Perhaps I shewed less presence of mind to day than I might have summoned to my aid on another occasion, because that long walk, which you, dearest Mrs. Gordon, chid me for adventuring, was undertaken this morning in quest of some information respecting my hapless tale. While resting yesterday beneath the hawthorn hedge, I overheard a labourer telling our gardener that a young man had lately come into the neighbourhood to marry one of our farmers' daughters, and professed to have seen me in former days, as well as to know how I fell into the hands of a gipsey horde. Breathless and agitated I listened with the deepest attention, but the men were walking forward, and I caught no more of their conversation. On my return to the house I consulted with Rachael, that faithful creature who was placed by the kindness of Mrs. Hartland to watch over my tender years. She loves me dearly, and her affection has often been a refuge for my sorrows. She knew at once, by my account, who the person was to whom the labourer alluded, and promised to make minute inquiry; but my impatience would not brook delay, and after a sleepless night, I set off, accompanied by her, at early dawn to see and speak myself to the stranger. Buoyed up at one moment by hope; at another, trembling with fear, I flew along, regardless of distance, and reached the cottage were he was to be found; I saw, and conversed with him. My curiosity has been punished. Alas! the little he could tell, has only served to add bitterness to my former ignorance. He told me that he pursued the gipsey group, to which I afterwards belonged, for the purpose of obtaining payment for a horse from the very man who purchased me, and who was the greatest rogue of the whole party, as also their chief. At length my informer found these wild people encamped upon the southern coast, and while he remained to transact his own business, he witnessed a negotiation, which put the lawless band in possession of the miserable Zoé. A woman, dressed in mean attire, and having the appearance of a soldier's wife, offered me for sale. The bargain was made. The man who bought me inquired my name, and the unfeeling wretch who could so barter her weeping infant for a sum of money, replied, 'You may call her Zorilda. I have just landed with her from Spain, and the sooner you change your quarters the better.' The gipsey chief next inquired of the woman whether she had a husband, fearing that the father might follow, to reclaim his child. 'No, no,' answered the she wolf, whom, I am now tortured by supposing to have been my mother; 'he is laid low enough. He was killed, and will not rise from the grave to trouble you. I must not linger here. Hide the child till you arrive in another part of the country, and set off with your prize as fast as you can.'

"This is the sum and substance of all the information I could glean. The woman who made traffic of her offspring, would not tell the gipsies to what regiment her husband belonged, nor mention his name. I have, therefore, not the slightest clue by which to make further scrutiny, and the only knowledge which I have gained, deprives me of the humble consolation which I before enjoyed, of dreaming that I was once folded in the arms of an adoring parent, who, however lowly her lot of life, still loved and pressed me to a mother's bosom. The keenness of this disappointment, and the certainty that the moral qualities of her who gave me birth were as debased as her station, peculiarly unfitted me to bear with calmness the sentence which Mrs. Hartland pronounced to-day upon a vulgar origin.

"Oh, why are my feelings so acute? Sprung from the lowest abyss, the very dregs of my species, why are my thoughts so proud? Why is my will thus rebellious? If, like the humble hind who tills the earth, I could be satisfied with the rank assigned by Providence, I could be happy; I could raise my hands to heaven, and bless my creator in the temple of nature; bend to my rustic toil, and repose in peace; but there is a war within, which murders rest. I feel as if I had been formed for another destiny, and my spirit cannot submit in meekness to this degradation."

"My Zorilda," answered Mrs. Gordon, "you have not reduced religion to practice, and your trials have been sufficient to render the task of obedience severe; but it must be learned. The morbid sensibility which you encourage blinds your understanding, and you draw false conclusions. The inference which I derive from your dialogue with the stranger this morning is directly opposite to that which you deduce. The soldier's wife was not your mother. Nay, I should decide against her having even been your nurse. The strong instincts of nature are seldom violated, and amid all the depravity of human kind there are few instances of such unnatural character as you take for granted in the present case. Zorilda is not a name by which an English soldier's wife would have been likely to call her daughter; neither would a woman who sold her own child, and whose husband was no longer living to upbraid her, or seek its recovery, have had any apparent motive for the concealment which she desired, in the speedy decampment of the gipsies. Be assured that you are rather the offspring of Spanish parents, probably of rank and consideration. Silk and velvet, of which materials your dress was made when first my sister saw you, are not the common manufactures which clothe inferior people. Who has had the misfortune to lose you, is a mystery which I wish we were enabled to solve, but all that I do know convinces me that you are not the child of her who sold you to the gipsey gang."

"Dear and kind friend," exclaimed Zorilda, "how grateful am I for the tender feeling with which you try to mitigate my pain. I will not repel your efforts—I will adopt your creed—it shall be mine, and I will endeavour to believe that I was indeed stolen from my home by the cruel being who passed me again into stranger hands. But what a fate is mine, when such a surmise is the best consolation which can be offered. Had I been left in my native land, though torn from all I loved, I might have been brought up in the religion of my ancestors, and found an asylum in some friendly convent. You have no such refuge here for the unhappy."

"All England is the refuge of the destitute," replied Mrs. Gordon; "her bounteous shores have been pressed by royal fugitives, and this glorious land, this favoured soil, has sheltered kings as well as slaves from the tyranny of other climes. Shall my Zoé repine at having imbibed the doctrines of a purer faith than that of Spain? The heart may freely dedicate itself to God without the call of matin or of vesper bell. We have altars every where, and do not want the convent's gloomy pile to enshrine our prayers. Those sad receptacles are frequently the scene of guilt, and the prison walls of the religious recluse, too often contain devotion of every kind but that to Heaven."

"Oh forgive my impetuosity; I stand convicted of my error. Be my counsellor; speak peace to a wounded spirit, and you shall find in Zorilda a docile as well as a grateful heart," said the lovely Spaniard, with an expression of countenance so contrite, so imploring, as to touch Mrs. Gordon to the soul; but afraid of indulging affection which would be soon interrupted by her own departure from Henbury, she repressed the tear which rose to her eye, and looking at her young and beautiful companion with an air of encouraging kindness, she kissed, raised her gently from the seat on which they had been conversing, and leading her towards the house, emphatically uttered those inspired words of the royal Psalmist, "Whom have I in Heaven but thee; and whom do I desire on earth beside thee?" adding, "When we can answer this passionate and affecting inquiry with sincerity, and feel that there is no idol dividing the empire of our hearts with that being who will not reign over a disputed kingdom, then, and not till then, shall the distracted bosom find repose."

Zorilda started, coloured violently, and looked as if her heart would burst its prison without permission from her will, but just as her lips were going to obey its impulse, she checked the accents as they were escaping, and after a momentary pause, during which a short but dreadful conflict seemed to convulse her frame, she caught the arm of her friend, and calling up all the fortitude of virtuous resolution to her aid, exclaimed—

"Yes! be it so; God is the orphan's portion. He is the defender of the fatherless. You have touched a hidden chord. The world is of Proteus form; and even in such seclusion as this, its roses or its thorns can occupy the imagination, and divert the soul from its devotion to the Supreme. I will bind your words upon my heart! I will remember that within my own breast there is an altar of dedication to receive my vows. The offering only is wanting to complete the sacrifice, and you have furnished the test by which I am to seek the victim."

"Make no vows, my child," said Mrs. Gordon; "freedom is with noble minds the straitest bondage. Endure your trials; kiss the rod. Believe that affliction comes not from the dust; it is sent from on high to purify and exalt. The murmur of irritability, and the gloomy silence of a sullen temper, are alike remote from that submission which your God requires to fit you for the glorious society of angels. Should an earthly friend be wanted by my Zoé, while I live, remember Drumcairn, and fly to its peaceful retreat."

These words sank too deeply for reply. The Gordons returned to Scotland; and in an hour after they drove from the door. While Zorilda was plunged in the deepest grief and lamentation, a letter arrived to announce the approach of Algernon.

  CHAPTER IX.

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promised." — Shakspeare.

The difference between hope and fruition is a hacknied theme, and there are few pleasures belonging to man, of which it may not be said, with Congreve, that

"'Tis expectation makes the blessing dear."

Scarcely had Zorilda bid adieu to the friends whose society had afforded that fulness and variety of enjoyment which constitute the longest as well as most delightful measure of remembered time, when in an hour of such desolation as a heart like hers, alive to the strongest impressions, could alone experience; the current of her grief was disturbed, as is the rivulet's gentle flow, when a fragment from the mountain side dashes into the midst of the stream, breaking its silent waters into a thousand troubled eddies.

A letter from Algernon came to announce his intended return, and one brief fortnight would now give him back to the eyes and heart of her whose agitated spirits bore speaking testimony to the powerful hold which he possessed on her affections.

Two years had intervened since our hero left Henbury for Oxford. He had contrived, on various pretences, to lengthen his stay at Paris, till the University appeared to be altogether abandoned. Mrs. Hartland felt her son's absence severely, but it was some consolation to believe that he was extending his connections advantageously amongst people whose rank and consequence were conformable to the future dignity of his prospects. She likewise trusted, that present sacrifice of his society would be repaid by the perfect cure of his first love.

Algernon never failed to flatter the weakness of his parents, and while time and money were wasted in profligacy, a list of distinguished names deceived them, gratified their vanity, and cheated them, through a series of vaunting lies, into the fond assurance, that their darling was the principal ornament of the Court of France. He had quarrelled with the Marquess of Turnstock, but concealed his separation from him, and the true motive of his present design to re-visit home at this moment, was in order to anticipate conjecture which might naturally arise when his Lordship's arrival in England unaccompanied by him, would lead to inquiry why they had parted from each other after being the "Castor and Pollux" of Oxford.

Zorilda had indeed often wondered at the frigid nature of that affection which could impose upon itself the pangs and penalties of such lengthened absence. She had often asked herself what spell had the power to charm the wanderer, and would then chide her heart for its jealous doubts. The intervals between Algernon's letters were much increased since he commenced his foreign travel, but Zorilda could account for this. "He knows that I have no money, and would spare me his mother's reproaches for the cost of frequent postage," said the innocent Zoé, who judged of others by herself. Every letter, too, when tried by the test which revealed its hidden sentiments, contained assurance of undying love which kindred flames developed, when, spite of her prohibition, inspired by

"Hope, kind cheat, fair fallacy,"

she held the paper to the fire, "pardoning the treason for the traitor's sake."

Zorilda's quick penetration had also remarked sundry abbreviations and blots in Algernon's late despatches, which might be truly so called in every sense of the word, and sighed as she recollected that a celebrated Madame de Staal, who lived in the age of Louis Quinze, had discovered the refrigeration of a lover's affection, in his voluntary choice of a short road when he used to conduct her home to her convent, after passing the day with her friends in Paris. Two sides of the triangle which formed the court of the convent would have afforded a longer tête-à-tête than the diagonal; yet the lover abridged opportunity by preferring the diagonal, and the young Frenchwoman at once decided that he had ceased to be one, and would see him no more.

She was right, but though Zorilda felt the shortened words as much as Madame de Staal in her youth had felt the shortened way, she pleaded unavoidable haste, to excuse all apparent negligence or contempt, though the acuteness of her sensibility made her alive to the slightest change of temperature in affection. Even had her reasoning been more severe, it would not have stood proof against the first sound of the carriage wheels which announced Algernon's arrival within the gates of Henbury. The most subtile arguments are but feeble weapons when opposed to true love, when the latter is re-inforced by presence of the beloved object. One look is sufficient to put to flight a world of reasoning, and Zorilda did not wait to see her truant, before her beating heart proclaimed full pardon of every omission or commission of which he had ever been guilty. Algernon's letter inclosed an open note, which his mother as usual read before she suffered it to leave her hands. To her eyes it only contained a few careless words, calculated to lull every apprehension of repose. She could find nothing more than—

Mrs. Hartland contrasted this meagre demonstration with the "dearest mother" and "most affectionate son," addressed to herself, and presented this blotted billet to the blushing girl with an air of triumph.

Zorilda read it without making any comment, but longed to be alone to try whether "fire haste" might not extract something more from the paper which she held in her trembling hand.

The intelligent reader has, no question, often remarked, that people whose tempers are not governed by any other director than their passions, are kind or unkind to others as they happen to be pleased or displeased themselves. This was Mrs. Hartland's habit, and Zorilda's patience was often put to severe trial; but the mother's spirits were now elated, and all around shared their couleur de rose. She folded up her packet, and smiling benignantly on her young friend, desired her to go, and give the necessary orders to prepare for her son's return.

"Algernon will be of age on the 25th," said Mrs. Hartland, "and this is an event of importance in my family. If he comes before his birthday, we shall have a double joy to celebrate. Childish things must henceforth be put away, and my son must now assume the manly character in which he is called from this time to act a new part upon the stage of life; aye, and I trust also a distinguished one. The boyish follies of Algernon's early youth are no longer to be remembered, and one-and-twenty is an age——"

The young Spaniard's eloquent cheek and eye were beginning to betray a painful consciousness of the secret meaning which these words were designed to convey. She understood, with rapid comprehension, the full tenour of this commencing oration; but the entrance of a servant, who came to say that a messenger had just arrived on horseback at full speed, bringing a letter which he had orders not to confide to any other hands than those of Mr. or Mrs. Hartland, offered an opportunity which Zorilda instantaneously seized to glide out of the room, and snatching up her straw hat as she passed quickly through the hall, she flew into the open air to give free vent to feelings too agonizing to be suppressed, too proud to be revealed, to her who had excited them.

"Break not yet, poor heart," said Zorilda aloud, as she gained her favourite solitude; "such tumult of the soul can find no place in Heaven, whither all my thoughts should bend. There all is peace, celestial peace! Oh, she is a skilful archer; every arrow is securely aimed, every poisoned shaft is winged unerringly. Did she not say that "childish things are to be laid aside?" and what so childish as love for the nameless, friendless, orphan-gipsey? I understand it all too well, yet why too well? Ungrateful that I am! Shall I repine that I am enabled to perceive the dangers which beset my path? and do I call myself unfriended while the spirit of her who so lately blessed me with almost a mother's tenderness, still hovers here? Yes, in this spot used we to hold sweet counsel. Here did I listen to the soothing voice of comfort, here taste the balm of sacred wisdom as from her lips distilled the pure stream of divine instruction, which poured daily on my ear. Though absent, she shall teach me still, and I will pray in the silence of this fragrant breeze, to that Being who is never deaf to the supplicant's cry."

What breast unvitiated by the artificial world is not alive to the soft influence of nature, and what soul ever sought its God in sincerity and humiliation without finding relief? Zorilda rose from the mossy shrine, strengthened, refreshed, consoled, and sitting down where she had knelt before, exclaimed with fervour, "Remember Drumcairn!" "Those were her parting words as she folded me to her bosom. Yes, I will remember, and with thankfulness, that there is yet an earthly asylum for Zorilda." A slight rustling amongst the branches which formed a screen behind where she sat, and threw their protective shade over her head, disturbed her meditations; and starting up she looked around, but could only discover by an increased movement of the leaves, that something had brushed through them.

"What a fool I am!" said she; "shall I fear my old and faithful companions, and start at a bird? But hah! what is here? a letter, and for me!" She seized the paper with trembling haste, and casting a timid glance around, hurried breathlessly back to the shrubbery from which she had strayed, and closed its gate before she dared venture to break the seal, and read the following lines:

Zorilda was nearly overcome with terror and astonishment. Unused to consider herself an object of interest to any one, the liveliest gratitude would have possessed her unsuspecting heart, if the dread of some impending ill did not predominate over every calmer feeling. From whence came the warning which she had just received? It was not the hand-writing of Mr. Playfair, and if it were, why should he be thus mysterious? He would have pointed explicitly to the approaching danger, and as openly advised the best means of avoiding it. This anonymous intimation was perhaps itself a snare; yet it prescribed caution, and seemed to be dictated by truth and kindness.

"What shall I do? Oh whither shall I turn for counsel?" said Zorilda. "If I tell Mr. Hartland, what profit will accrue? He cannot lock me up, nor place a guard in attendance on my steps. Mrs. Hartland would call me a heroine of romance, and I should be derided, ridiculed, insulted. What a time is this to have lost the true friends who would have been my pilots! But God is every where, He will direct me, if with a single heart, I implore His heavenly guidance."

The sound of hasty footsteps put an end to Zorilda's reflections. She folded the paper quickly, over which she had been musing, and had scarcely time to conceal it, when Rachel, a faithful domestic already introduced to the reader, ran towards her, out of breath—

"Miss Zoé, Miss Zoé, make no delay; my mistress is calling for you, and angry that you cannot be found. Master is from home too; not expected till dinner, which is ordered an hour later than usual, and we have been put into a great flutterment by news at the house; but I am not to tell you any thing about it, only to find, and send you in, without loss of time."

Zorilda trembled so exceedingly, that she could hardly obey the summons, and immediately concluded, that whatever circumstances had occurred in her absence, bore some reference to the mysterious communication which had been made to her. Bewildered by the variety of alarms which thronged upon her mind, she advanced with breathless agitation, and having reached the house, heard Mrs. Hartland's voice loudly employed in giving directions to have a horse saddled, and a servant in readiness to set off in quest of her husband, who had gone that morning to attend a board of magistrates at some distance from Henbury.

Zorilda, pale as death, gained the apartment from whence she heard these orders issuing, and felt sinking with apprehension and exhaustion, when she was met by a countenance in which exultation, impatience, resentment, and solicitude struggled for mastery.

"Where is it that you hide yourself in this unfeeling manner?" said Mrs. Hartland, with impetuous eagerness. "Is it not too provoking that I should be left alone, and that nobody can be found in a moment of such agitation as the present. Lord Marchdale lies at the point of death. He has had a paralytic stroke, and is speechless. Mr. Humphries, the head steward, who has long been in our interests, has sent off an express to give secret intelligence of the event; and here, by the most unlucky chance imaginable, my son is far away, and I know not how to direct to him. Mr. Hartland, who hardly ever leaves home, is absent; and even you too are moping idly in some hole or corner, and can nowhere be found. You have no personal interest, it is true, in the matter, but it is intolerable that you should be out of the way when my hand shakes so that I cannot hold a pen."

The harshness, as well as unreasonableness, of this attack, repelled the softer sympathies of Zorilda's heart, which were ever ready at the call of affection; and summoning as much firmness as she could command, she calmly replied,

"Madam, as you had no cause to anticipate this event, you would have been the first to censure Mr. Hartland's indolence, had he neglected the business which engages him this morning; and as to me, I am not aware of disobeying your commands in taking a walk at no great distance from the house. I am ready now, though my hand is not very steady, to write as you shall dictate."

"I shall remember your insolent coldness," said Mrs. Hartland; "write directly to Mr. Humphries, thank him in my name for the zeal which he has shewn in our affairs, desire him to keep a strict eye over the property, and to refuse admittance to all interlopers, and——"

"Oh," interrupted Zorilda, "do not accuse me of that which is foreign from my nature. Can any good or evil happen at Henbury in which I do not share? Are you not my benefactors? But you reject my sympathy with disdain, and then reproach me for the want of it. Let me prove how much I feel upon the present occasion by conjuring you not to commit yourself by writing such a letter as you propose to the steward. If, as I have heard you say, Mr. Hartland is heir to the estates, as well as to the title of Marchdale, you will owe nothing to the officiousness of this Humphries; but should Lord Marchdale have had power over his fortune, and exercised it to your disadvantage, how will this precipitancy advance your claims, or redress the evil? Again, a paralytic stroke is not always fatal. Lord Marchdale may recover, and then you are at the mercy of a sycophant who may turn your impatience to account with his master, and represent you in unfavourable colours, to your future ruin. Let me return your acknowledgments for a letter which you have opened in the absence of Mr. Hartland, and enter no farther into the subject of it."

"You are right, Zoé; I forgive you," answered Mrs. Hartland; "make haste, give a guinea to the messenger, see that he is properly taken care of, and despatch him without delay."

Zorilda executed the task which her own good sense and delicacy had suggested; but who can describe the state of her mind, when, having performed her commission, she had time to reflect on her own situation, rendered doubly precarious and painful, by the increased distance which she perceived the near prospect of rank and fortune would place between her and all she loved?

Mr. Hartland returned, and even his phlegmatic temperament was excited by the news which awaited him. Visions of future greatness now absorbed the attention of him and his wife, though they took various hues, according with the difference of their characters. Mr. Hartland shewed no impatience, but, assuming a sort of sullen pomp, seemed to feel himself already in possession of the distinction which he anticipated; while Mrs. Hartland, in an agony of "hope deferred," endured a perpetual fever of mind from the restlessness and impotent activity of her disposition. Day after day passed without bringing farther tidings, and the final account from Marchdale-court was necessary to allay those apprehensions which embittered her golden dreams.

There is one character still more irritating than that of an ex post facto prophet, and that is a person who, not waiting for events, begins, while they are yet pending, to foresee disastrous issues in the interval between causes and effects, without casting a shadow of blame upon themselves for having acquiesced in that very conduct, on the failure of which their angry sagacity is afterwards employed too late to prevent whatever may be its result. Mrs. Hartland was of this description. The mob principle, that every one must be wrong who does not glide with full sails before the wind, influenced all her decisions of every kind; and though in the present case it was obvious, that while Lord Marchdale lived she could not receive the joyful information of his death, she could not impute the silence of Mr. Humphries to any other source than offence at the frigid style of Zorilda's reply to his letter. "I saw plainly how it would be. I knew that Mr. Humphries would be affronted. We have evidently lost a friend who would have watched over our interests, and all because I was too much agitated to write myself. I should have conciliated this worthy man, and flattered his vanity with assurance of my entire reliance on his zeal and discretion; but people who know nothing of the world will put in a word of advice, and woe to all who give ear to their stupid counsels."

To these, and such like taunts, Zorilda had to listen, whenever her evil genius brought her within hearing of Mrs. Hartland's unceasing complaints; which were now received with less submission by her husband, as he began to feel himself rising in the scale of human dignity, and remembered that it was through him that the expected honours were to come.

"For Heaven's sake," he would sometimes say, "let my relation die in peace, my dear. Would you have Mr. Humphries administer a dose of poison to hasten your victim out of the world, in order to accommodate your ambition?"

"Mr. Hartland you are becoming insufferable. Your torpor is more exasperating than the rage of a lion. I am sure, were it not for the sake of posterity, I wish that your relation may recover, and keep you out of an earldom which you are not fit for, and have too little feeling to value. My son, however, will one day grace a coronet of which his father is little worthy."

"I suppose that you would kill me also, to make way for your idol," retorted Mr. Hartland; "but we may all prove too tough for your wishes. Mind, I tell you that a paralytic stroke is not always a stroke unto death; and you may be punished yet for committing murder in your heart, if not with your hands. Take my advice, good lady, and keep yourself cool; or in vulgar phrase, do not reckon your chickens before they are hatched."

This was a new style of dialogue at Henbury, and exceedingly shocked the gentle Zorilda; who, endeavouring to forget her own anxieties as much as possible, tried every effort in her power to soften these asperities and mediate between the belligerent parties, who never had quarrelled till now, when they seemed upon the eve of attaining the grand object of their common wishes.

"How strange the effect of what the world calls prosperity!" exclaimed this child of nature, when relieved from the irksome society of those with whom it was her lot to drag the heavy hours. "Who would desire to possess a few ideal distinctions, brief as shadowy, at the expense of all that is dear to the heart?"

Zorilda was debarred the luxury, not denied to many in this age, of communicating her thoughts to a distant friend. The power of purchasing this gratification was more than she could command, so entire was her dependence; and even if it had been permitted her to correspond with Mrs. Gordon, the necessity of shewing every line which she either wrote or received, would have neutralized the privilege.

"Let me thank God," said she, "that I have still the power of thought; still the blessed boon of self-communion left; and, oh may I use the gift to profit! examine my heart, probe its most secret recesses, and cultivate resignation to the will of Him who sees it good that I should be thus severely tried!"

When aspirations such as these would escape her lips, a bright gleam of hope sometimes succeeded, and painted Algernon in all the bloom of youthful joy, returning to the home of his happy childhood; called thither to embellish a higher sphere, elate with glad prospects, and placed in possession of power to shed happiness in every smile. Spite of every effort to repress the fond dreams of imagination, they would sometimes, too, indulge in weaving a golden future for herself. If Algernon had ceased to love, why did his letters still breathe the honied accents of a sentiment which he might pretend to forget? Was it generous to doubt his truth because his words were few? Was it reasonable to expect more lavish demonstration of an attachment so constrained by circumstances? Arrived at full age, and raised to dignity and independence, might he not prevail with his parents to enter into his views?

Thoughts such as these were too welcome not to force their way, and if Zorilda had inclination, she wanted strength to banish them always from her mind. A secret feeling would even picture the pleased surprise with which Algernon would hear her voice, already flexible and melodious, now improved by science and cultivation, and accompanied by the "mellow minstrelsy" of a Spanish guitar, on which Mrs. Gordon's tasteful tuition had rendered her a proficient.

How lovely was the expression of that eloquent eye! How touching the sounds which flowed from those ruby lips when hope's delightful inspirations came o'er her mind,