An

side, neither spoke or stirred, lest I should awaken her from that placid sleep. hour sped away, and I closed the door on the attendants who would have looked on her, and bade them wait without. I could not brook that any should meet her awaking smile, save her son !-Said I that the day passed? alas! how swiftly! Evening slowly threw its gloom over the chamber of my mother; but it rendered the cold cheek less pale, and the bloodless brow less ghastly; and even to this hour I bless that gloom which prolonged, though for so short a space, the too vain hope of her existence. Night closed in, and a dense heat came with the darkness; I crept from my mother's couch, and unclosed the narrow casement, for methought she would breathe more calmly-little dreamt I in that moment, that she breathed no more! I returned to the silent pillow -I kissed the wan cheek, and started at the chill of its soft touch; but again I fondly thought it cooled by the passage of the breeze to which I had yielded en

trance, and I withdrew not my earnest eyes from the death-couch of my mother! With the darkness came a lone and lovely bird-it fluttered for a second round the chamber, and then pausing in its flight, it poured a strain of plaintive and absorbing melody on the air: my heart beat quicker as I listened to it; and as each lengthened echo died away, so died my hope-my soul whispered me that its wild music was the requiem of my mother; and when the mournful bird fled through the casement, I rose from beside the deathcouch of the ladye De Moubrey, and felt that I indeed was motherless!"

As the lord Amaury concluded his narration, he pressed his spread palms on his flushed and throbbing brow, and hurried from the apartment. The archbishop stirred not eye or limb-he strove not to impede his retreat-he murmured no word of sympathy-in that moment of silent misery, he thought only of Rosalind De Moubrey-her whom he had loved with all the ardour of a first and

only passion-who through years of prayer and penance, was still unforgotten; he thought not of her son, nor of the royal youth upon whose manly cheek rested a silent unobtrusive tear: what to him in that hour were crowns or courtliness? he was again with his first loveagain feeling the heart-beat of youththe impulse of affection: his mental vision, more rapid than the lingering years which had passed in regretful sorrow, glanced in one transient moment over a little age of life: he saw the lovely Saxon, radiant with youth, the beloved of his heart, stretched on her death-bier, the lamented of a fond and only son; his bewildered fancy rested not on the form of her wedded lord-one tear-fraught vision absorbed his very thought-one form -one memory-resistless sorrow pointed with stern and steady finger to the image of Rosalind De Moubrey.

CHAP. X.

Thy life of love is one deep dream of joy,
A bliss, a happiness, that nought can cloy :
The passion is thy being, animates

Thine every feeling, and itself creates

Others more wild, more reckless; and to be
Belov'd and cherish'd solely, seems to thee
The very acmé of all heavenly!

-What then arrives?—at length the veil is rent-
Delusion's fickle influence is spent-

And all those feelings woman only knows,

Fly in an instant, and her weight of woes
Bends her at once to ruin!-while despair
Blackens a soul before unmarr'd and fair
So darkly, that it never shines again,
As purest marbles take the deepest stain.

A Woman's Heart.

BERTRAM.

As the lady Eulelia passed from the apartment of the lady of Northumberland, whither she had been sent by her royal mistress, to return to the chamber of the princess, she encountered on her way the lord De Lacy; the cicatrizing wound no

longer robbed his eye of its customary fire, or his cheek of its wonted bloom, though he still leant slightly on his weapon for support. The favourite of the princess blushed painfully when she perceived him, and a slight moisture swelled in her dark eye; with a silent and haughty bend, she would have pursued her way, but the softly-modulated voice of De Lacy-that voice which had so long, and so lately-ay, which was even yet sweeter than a minstrel's harpings to her fond heart, checked her haste for a moment; but again the pride of slighted affection nerved her, and she sought hurriedly to pass on.

"And is De Lacy so soon forgotten," asked the Gaul, with asperity, "that his very greeting wins him no reply from the lady Eulelia?"

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Would that, like the dregs of an ill draught, his memory might be cast away!" replied the maiden, while her cheek became deadly pale, and her dark eye flashed beneath its long silken lash, as she raised not for an instant her bent head;