had listened with the deepest interest and delight to the preceding colloquy, not attempting to take any share in it, except when she had timidly ventured to remind the stranger of Mr. Shelton's parting injunction that he should not exert himself too much, an instance of watchful attention which he had acknowledged with a becoming gratitude, though it had failed to moderate his energy. As he fell back upon the couch, she ran up to him, inquiring with looks of the tenderest sympathy whether she could procure him any thing to recruit his strength; a question which was anxiously repeated by Agatha, who had already rung the bell for assistance. In a feeble voice, but with a smiling countenance, the invalid entreated them not to be alarmed, declaring that he had only felt a momentary faintness, which was already passing away. At this juncture Mr. Shelton, accompanied by Father Bartholomew, re-entered the apartment, when they dismissed the young ladies with a gentle admonition for having suffered their patient to over-exert himself, adding, that

by way of punishment for their inattention, they should neither of them see him again until the following morning.

An increase of fever, brought on by the vehemence of the patient's temperament, necessitated a fresh bleeding on the morrow, and the consequent debility, aggravating his impatience and inflaming his ardent feelings, defeated the remedies applied to him, so that he was kept for some time alternating between helpless languor and fits of perilous excitation, thus retarding his recovery and his departure by his over-anxiety to accelerate them. During this period, Agatha and Edith, attending upon him daily as his nurses and companions, ministered to his wants with an affectionate assiduity, and endeavoured to amuse the hours of his confinement by their discourse, by reading to him, or by occasionally diverting him with music. Edith, although her talents would have well qualified her for the task, was restrained by timidity and bashfulness from taking a prominent share in the conversation; she preferred, indeed, listening

to the discourse of her companions, devouring with a silent delight the stranger's accents, and feeling her whole heart expand and glow with a delicious sympathy as she hearkened to his generous sentiments, or gathered instruction from his account of foreign countries, in which he appeared to have been an extensive traveller. Owing to this diffidence, her character and acquirements did not at first develope themselves to the notice of the invalid, although he could not fail to mark, and to feel with a due gratitude, that she was constantly on the watch to tell him the hour when his febrifuge was to be taken, to guard him against over-exertion in talking, or to minister those trifling services which were flattering in proportion to their unimportance, because they proved that he was never absent from her thoughts. But it was when she read to him that he discovered the keen acuteness and exquisite sensibility of her mind. The remarks she would then timidly offer evinced a penetration that astonished him, while at any tender tale of love or woe, her

voice would falter in spite of the struggle to suppress her feelings, the tears would gush from her eyes, and the blushing, trembling girl, distressed at her own emotion, was often fain to shut the volume, and retire in confusion from the room.

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Such intelligence, such tenderness, such vigilant and yet unobtrusive care in her attentions, combined with the delicate loveliness of her pearance, awakened in his bosom a fervent gratitude and a warm regard for Edith, — feelings which might speedily have been kindled into love had he seen her in any other society than that of Agatha. By many, the pensive retiring gentleness and delicate charms of Edith might have been deemed more feminine and fascinating; but the stranger was captivated, enraptured by the collected placidity, the exalted sentiments, and majestic beauty of Agatha. Her noble form seemed to be a temple worthy of the mental divinity enshrined within it, and both appealed to his affections and to his judgment with a power that became at every fresh interview

more and more irresistible. Surprise at the unexpected congeniality of their sentiments upon almost every subject, gratitude for the share she had had in his preservation, as well as for the assiduity with which she ministered towards his recovery, and perhaps an anxiety to repair the injustice of his indiscriminate prejudice against the Catholics, all combined to invest Agatha with a thousand attractions; while the circumstances under which they were daily thrown together for some hours, and the natural ardour of his temperament, favoured and quickened the growth of a passion which seldom requires any great length of time for its developement. It has been said that lovers are never so handsome as when conversing together: the desire to appear amiable in each other's eyes investing their countenances with a moral beauty, superadded to that which nature had previously bestowed. Whether the stranger's enthralment was accelerated by any additional attractions of this nature, we cannot determine, but certain it is, that yielding to the impulse of his feelings,