bestowed upon her sister; and insensibly their manner in public became the practice in private, where there was no need for it. His hopes rose high, and he scrupled not to advance them by endeavouring to extirpate the last kind feeling which he thought might yet linger for poor Vibert. One while he affected chagrin, and in vented excesses on the part of his friend as the cause of it: at another time he was incensed at injurious words, which he alleged to have been employed by Vibert towards herself. At last, when he thought himself quite secure, he disclosed his passion, and was rejected with astonishment.

The sting, for one like him, had a thousand barbs: he loved the beautiful Marion with all the energy of a soul which had never before loved a human being. Common report, and his confidence in her resentment against Vibert, had made him consider her as already his own. His triumph over all the competitors that he had feared, envied, and detested, was, as he deemed, on the evè of completion; and now he was to be the object of derision and mock pity! The means which he had used to ingra

tiate himself would probably be divulged. The inmost core of his heart would be exposed and scorned; and Vibert, whom he felt to be the latent cause of his rejection, was, perhaps, finally to be reinstated, and to flaunt his triumph daily before his eyes! The very evils which bad minds have attempted to inflict upon others, become a provocation to themselves : they have been defeated, and therefore they have been injured; and the rejected suitor returned home pallid and quivering with an ague fit of mortal hate.

The attentions of Marcus had never been discussed between the sisters until the occurrence of this catastrophe. He left them in a shaded alley of the pleasure- grounds, which were beginning to be strewed with the yellow leaves of autumn; and a clouded sunset cast a few long streaks across the sward, and made the deep recesses look still more sombre.

There are few who do not feel a melancholy peculiar to this period of the year. Marion had a double reason; for it was about the same time in the preceding autumn, and in the summer-house but a few steps before her, that

she had passed the last happy hour with Vibert!

"Marion," said Edith, as they walked on, with their arms fondly resting upon each other's neck, "you are not well. It is long since you were well; but I had hoped that the attachment of Marcus would have dispelled a deep grief, of which you forbade me ever to speak. I trusted that your heart had been arrested in its progress of sorrow, and I was silent, lest you should think me jealous of my sweet rival.”

"Heavens! that my apathy should have been so great as to mistake his intentions. I only bore with him because I thought him your's."

"Marion, I never should have wished him loved by you, had I not felt that your life depended on the diversion of your thoughts. I have been mistaken; you have been dying daily, and, unless you would have me die with you, let me write to Vibert. Sweet Marion, let me write, as from myself, in my own wild way, merely to bid him come and dance on my birthday."

"No, Edith, no. He would suspect the reason; it is too humiliating. I have still pride

enough left to save me from contempt, if not to

'

support me from

things."

Edith, let us talk of other

She leaned her head upon her sister's bosom, and both were weeping, when they were startled by the gallop of a horse, and a ring at the garden gate. Edith saw that it was the servant of Vibert, and she sprang like a fawn to inquire his commission. He brought a letter for Marion, and thus it ran:

"The relations who stood between me and the succession to the estates of Hazledell are dead. I am now my uncle's heir; but I fear too late. The sorrow of withdrawing myself to my proper distance when I was poor is probably to be followed up by the anguish of being forbidden to return now that I am rich. I dare not appear before you till I hear the refutation of your reported engagements with Marcus— till you bid me look forward to a termination of the misery which a feeling of honour obliged me to inflict upon myself."

Marion sank for support against the ivytwined pillar of the summer house. Edith kissed her pale cheek, and fondly whispered,

- I told you so: what answer will you send? After the first moments of tremulous agitation -after an interval of silence, to lull the tumits of her heart, Marion merely ejaculated, *Poor Vibert! I thought he had forgotten

← Rather say, poor Edith,” replied her sister, with a burst of that natural gaiety which had of late almost forsaken her; "poor Edith has now the willow-wreath all to herself. Alas! for some doughty champion to twine it round the neck of the false lord of Heroncliff!

"Here—here is a pencil-the servant waits for a reply.”

Marion tore the back from her letter, and wrote "The reports are unfounded—the future is in your power.”

"Edith!" she said, when the messenger was dismissed, “give me your arm back to the house, for I feel faint. In the midst of all this happiness, there is a sickness at my heart—a strange boding, that I am only tantalized by ehimeras, and meant for misfortune. haps I deceive myself. Perhaps it is only the strange bewilderment occasioned by this

Per