band!" said the Countess, gazing earnestly on him. "Serve him well! This realm will not afford you a nobler

"The head of your own Catholic house, perhaps !" said Valerius, with a monitory air.

"Well remembered!' said the Countess, her eye flashing more haughtily; "we thank you, Father, that you permit us never to forget the heretic principles of our Lord. Young man, thou canst not serve a nobler master !"

Lewen bowed, as much to avoid the direct glance of the Lady of Arding, as to evince his respectful acquiescence. The Countess again paused, bending her searching eye full on him.

"Father, observe well this youth." The confessor obeyed, and Lewen bore their united inspection more easily than the single gaze of the Lady. She paused. "A form like this," she con

tinued," has appeared in my visions of the night, but more divine, for it has bloomed as if celestial ichor tinged its veins. It came to me mingled with the dawnings of eternity; but the rest. was shapeless-that only, distinct. I have never lost sight of it; and now that it stands before me, it seems to me that I dream again. Father, I would not awake!" She paused, and her cheek lost its flushed crimson. "Tell me, Father, how is it, that the presence of a stranger-his person unknown,—of no affinity can thus infuse gladness amounting to extacy in a heart, that has long defied all the caresses of joy or happiness?" The Lady paused; her cheek and lips became entirely colourless she was fainting. Lewen approached as if borne on wings; he kneeled at her feet, he supported her with his arms as she bent to avail herself of his support, she almost em

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braced him. His heart trembled; a deadly sickness oppressed him; he required the assistance he so passionately afforded. A heavy sigh relieved him, and the Lady of Arding recovering, released herself. He retreated to his former position, but his cheek was flushed, and his eye downcast.

"Father!" said, the Countess, but in a voice more indistinct than before: "tell me, what new sensation overcomes me thus? Why did bliss produce an effect so much resembling death? Why am I thus happy in his presence? Why feel I as if the measure of felicity were already full? Why do I appear to possess that happiness after which my soul has so panted?”

"Is there not abundant cause?" replied the Confessor, in a low, energetictone. "Do you not receive in this Stranger, security that the object of your existence will be accomplished,

that all your cares will find termination, -that your future happiness will surpass your past misery? Remembering this, daughter, will you still wonder if joy dawns over your soul?"

"You have spoken well, Father," replied the Countess with an air of hesitating submission. "It must be thus !

and yet ❞—she paused; again sheglanced steadily on Lewen; "Father, I will no more lose the sight of that countenance; I will stamp it on my heart-on my brain; I will thus be able to trace any resemblance to it; perchance, my fancy will present it to me in the visions of the night more forcibly, and may elucidate to me those strange and affecting emotions which ovewhelm me: my memory shall never more be free from the traces I will impress on [it. Oh, Father, if this youth's remote connexion with the object of my prayers and my penance be indeed, as you affirm, the

cause which awakens emotions so new and endearing, when I possess that object, my felicity will be equal to that of saints and angels !"

"You will still find enough of bitter in your cup, to remind you of mortality and the pain of a pilgrimage on earth,” replied the Confessor, with a slight severity. "Can the wife of an heretic husband-can the mother of an heretic daughter, boast herself supremely happy?"

"Father, Father, you bow me to the dust! You wring my soul with deep penitence for that I have believed myself blessed, even for one poor minute's space!" said the Countess, in a voice of piercing woe. "When I gain a glimpse of the beatitude of Heaven; when I seem to hold converse with the bright forms of its inhabitants; you tear open the sepulchre, and display to me the ashes, the mangled bones, it enshrouds.