her to extend to Blanche and her be trothed, those congratulations which he knew were necessary to the perfect happiness of the former. But the Countess received the communication in tears and anguish, praying for solitude, and refusing to admit the lovers to her pre

sence.

To them the Earl softened the disappointment he was compelled to inflict, by the kind expressions of his personal. approbation. But it sunk deep in the heart of the susceptible Blanche.

CHAPTER VIII.

"She was dressed in black, her skin was contracted into a thousand wrinkles, her eyes deep sunk in her head, and her complexion pale and livid as the countenance of death. Her looks were filled with terror and unrelenting severity, and her hands armed with whips and scorpions. She addressed me in the following manner. 'Retire with me, O rash, unthinking mortal! from the vain allurements of a deceitful world; and learn, that pleasure was not designed the portion of human life. Man was born to mourn and to be wretched.- Every enjoyment is an offence to the deity, who is to be worshipped only by the mortification of every sense of pleasure, and the everlasting exercise of sighs and tears.'- -This monster is called SUPERSTITION." Carter.

THE Countess was in her oratory,she was kneeling before the emblem of redemption, before the image of the Saviour; her vestments were black, and her pale face looked more pallid from the contrast, and from the long tresses

of dark hair, very slightly tinged with grey, which hung on her shoulders and shaded her cheek. Her large black eyes were turned upwards, fixed in the intenseness of her prayers. Her hands were clasped round the crucifix to which she clung for protection, for relief, for mercy, for cessation of punishment. The humility of her attitude formed a strong relief to the proud dignity of her figure, perceptible even in its attitude of humiliation. She was an Athaliah in the posture of a Mary Magdalene. It was a personification of the passions subdued by superstitious terrors; or of superstition usurping the semblance of religion, clothing itself in vestal meekness, whilst the features that cannot be changed, become more marked from the unsuitableness of the garb that envelopes them.

The Confessor stood on the outside

of the curtain which divided the oratory from the outer apartment. He saw the attitude of his penitent, and he awaited in silence until she arose from it. Then he entered.

She saw him, and she advanced im mediately, but slowly. There was a measured majesty in her step, according well with the dignity of her figure. There was no alacrity of welcome to a friend; there was the reverent courtesy paid by the erring creature to her spiritual director, the sanctuary of her guilt, her misery, and her penitence; to whom duty had obliged her to reveal all her crimes, whilst she was humbled in his presence by the consciousness that her heart was bared to him, and that he stood before her competent to judge of, bound to animadvert on, that which her pride would have concealed for ever.

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My Father! your return is most

welcome, most welcome will be your counsel!" she said in low but distinct accents.

"It shall be accorded, daughter,' returned the Confessor, with his accustomed suavity.

"Strange and terrible events have overtaken me; Father, will they utterly crush me? Insupportable is the additional burden inflicted on me!"

"What be they?" said he, and a slight curve marked his smile; "what be they, and what be the sounds of mirth and revel which ring so discordantly in these walls, that should echo no voices but those of penitence, and sorrow, and woe? Is their heretic lord become also an infidel? Does he blaspheme God, that he dares thus hurl defiance towards Heaven? Even this is not wonderful; he who voluntarily throws himself into the vortex of apostacy, may be whirled