beat low and irregularly. Each little beat seemed to knock at his heart, with a giant's power! Soon, all was quiet;-and now what were the feelings of her murderer! He looked on her pale face, with stern composure. The muscles round his mouth, by their fixed and frightful rigidity, alone betrayed his heart's deep agony. "And I have murdered her!" He looked at his hands, as if to find them covered with blood; and shuddered, as though he saw the crimson stain. "It will not wash out," said he aloud, harping on this horrid idea, "my heart's blood could not do it." Reason was wavering in her seat. He took her cold hand in his, and the sense of touch restored it, and relieved him, by a shower of tears. "Thou wilt awake no more," said he, “like a young bird, to song and gladness! No more will thy presence delight-thy laughter gladden-thy beauty charm. Soon, how very soon, thy best friend will turn from thee in disgust,-thy fondest lover look on thee with loathing. And it is I-I to whom thy smile was joy, and thy love heaven, that have compressed thee into a clod of the valley!" He folded his arms around his inanimate wife, with frantic violence, for a last embrace then rushed into his dressing-room.

He took down his pistols, and loaded them, with that breathless haste which is intended to shut out thought; but which only serves to tinge actions resulting from remorse and grief, with the bearings of insanity. In how few moments may we revolve

whole years-aye, a whole life of matchless misery! The weapon of death was in Stafford's hand, held in a firm and forceful grasp. How soon may that hand be powerless, the principle of life, that mighty mystery, extinct within a form of manly beauty,—and yet the sun rise on as gay a world as though all smiled who yesterday were young and happy !-But what white form, with noiseless step, and face and hands so utterly wan and tintless that the grave seems despoiled of a tenant, works the mission of death upon the unhappy Stafford? For a moment, he gazed on the white-robed visitant who stood at the threshold, without speech or motion,-one arm extended, as if denouncing his soul's perdition; the life and strength of her attitude strangely and sadly contrasting the vacancy of death upon her countenance ;-then relaxing his hold, the pistol dropped from his nerveless grasp; and covering his face, as if to shut out a sight of horror, he uttered aloud his sense of the scene before him, "She comes to curse her murderer!"-and fell, a dead weight upon the floor.

Three months have passed since the frightful event we have related; and health, and happiness, and splendour reign, once more, in Stafford's house; where Mary still presides,-at once joy's image and its cause,---with her boy, who now begins to leave her side, for the ruder romping of his father. During the long illness-the effect of a remorseful imagination---which chained the wretched Stafford,

after the scene we have described, there was one voice, which, in the height of delirium, could still his frenzy, one hand whose gentlest pressure could instantly work obedience; one form of beauty, that gave grace and comfort to his sick-room,-that, however indistinctly seen, was recognized by his heart's perception, long before he had power to give that form a name. But, when he awoke to perfect consciousness of all that had passed,-when he found, from Mary's conversation, that she did not even guess that he had meant her wrong, but had attributed to temporary derangement the fearful scene which she had witnessed, after his fervent embrace had awakened her from her lethargic slumber,—when he recalled the mistake which he must have made, giving her medicine instead of doom,-then sorrow, the sorrow of humiliation and repentance, yet sorrow mixed with thankfulness and gratitude, was the indulged feeling of his heart.

When his wife deemed him strong enough to bear the glad tidings, she shewed him a letter from his neglected friend, Hugh Mortimer, containing the account of a wealthy nobleman's death, to whom Frederick was immediate heir; and Stafford, with an internal shudder, remembered that he had seen that very letter lying by his wife's bed-side, when he had so nearly given her the sleep of death!

MONA.