delicate in form, but she appeared to me fated for the grave.

As the evening advanced, her eyes seemed to grow heavy; and, though she appeared most unwilling to complain, she, at last, did complain of feeling tired and exhausted; and, as she rose to retire, she said, "I will go to rest early, that I may be refreshed in the morning; I have had a busy day, today, but I shall be as fresh as a lark to-morrow, Pierre, don't doubt it. Good night." I recollected, as she spoke, an old nursery song, which my nurse used to sing to me, when I was a child, of a boy who died, from eating snakes, by mistake, for eels, -not a very poetical cause of death;-but of which the ever-recurring burthen, sung, as it was, to a wild melancholy cadence, used to make me cry bitterly,—

"Haste mother, haste mother, make my bed soon, For I am sick, and I fain would lie down."

I little thought, at the moment, how far the parallel was about to extend.

The next morning, when I left my room, instead of seeing the bright faces, and hearing the merry voices, natural to a wedding, I met nothing but hurried steps, and clouded faces; and no one spoke but in a hurried and under tone. The cause of this soon occurred to me, and the mother speedily confirmed me in my belief. Aline was much, and suddenly, worse, and could not leave her bed. Pierre had set off, two hours before, for the nearest medical

man; but he lived at a very considerable distance, -St. Maurice, I think they said, and he could not be back before noon. I enquired into the particulars of the attack, and, from what I learned, I believed a blood-vessel to have broken on the lungs; in which case, weak as she seemed to me to be, I feared for the worst. I could not, I confess, reconcile it to myself to leave the place, till I had heard the report of the doctor. I had become strongly, perhaps strangely, interested in this young couple. There had appeared to me to be so much goodheartedness and right feeling about Pierre ;-he seemed so open, so honest, so affectionate;-he had striven so hard, and persevered so long, to enable him to be united to the object of his early love ;she, above all, was, in every way, so calculated to inspire interest,-so lovely, so delicate, so fond of him; they had been so long true to each other, under such trying circumstances;-and their love and their trials had seemed now, at last, so happily about to receive their completion and their reward;—that it struck me-I will say, deeply-to think that this long-expected, this well-merited happiness was, probably, on the point of being marred for ever, in a manner so tragical and shocking.

At length, Pierre returned, with the doctor. I question whether, with the exception of the lover and the parents, any one awaited the result of the interview with more anxiety than I did. It was as I had anticipated;-a blood-vessel had broken

during the night; and the hemorrhage, which was, in great part, internal, had left Aline exhausted to extremity: the surgeon pronounced, positively, that she could not survive five hours. I questioned him myself. He seemed a person of skill in his profession, and, certainly, was one of sense and feeling. He was much touched with the peculiarity of situation of his patient; and promised, partly at my entreaty, to remain till all was over. He visited her, again, in about an hour, and repeated his former opinion. Her hours were numbered, the scene was about to close.

I have seen many scenes of grief in my time, and I have undergone, as you know, at least, my share of those afflictions which fall to the lot of humanity; but, I do assure you, I have scarcely ever witnessed any thing which affected me more deeply,-certainly, never any thing in which I had not personal concern, -than the grief of poor Pierre. Fine manly fellow that he was, he was totally unmanned. "We were

to have been married to-day!" he kept saying, "we were to have been married to-day!”

When the surgeon, next, visited his patient, he remained with her longer than he had done before; and I began to hope that some favourable turn had taken place in her disorder. When, at last, however, he came out, he was brushing off the tears which had risen into his eyes,-a circumstance so extraordinary with men of his profession, accustomed, both from habit and from duty, to have

the strongest and sternest command over their feelings, as, at the moment, to make me suppose that his predictions had been verified, even sooner than he had expected. I was wrong in both ideas. No change had taken place, either for the better, or the worse, except the gradual declension, as death drew nigh. The surgeon's emotion was caused by something very different. He had communicated, as was his duty, to the poor girl, the truth as to her condition. She bore the sudden reverse, he said, of what was to have been her bridal day, with far more fortitude and composure than he could have conceived to be possible. But, till the return of her lover had given so strong an excitation to her system,—she had, (as she let fall,) been fully alive to the dangerous condition of her health, and had thought often, and long, and deeply, on the probable result. This, in a mind so well regulated as hers, had greatly tended to disarm death of his terrors, and to enable her to view his approach, now, at the last, so sudden, and in such sad contrast with her more recent hope, with resignation and tranquillity. But, she said, her chief source of regret formerly, and of joy of late, was the fear then, and the hope now, as to being united to the chosen of her youth,-to the tried and beloved object of all the stronger passions of her soul.

"It has always been," the surgeon told me she said to him, "it has always been the first, the. chief, the ONE object and wish, and hope of my

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life and heart, that I should live to be the wife of Pierre. Many obstacles and difficulties lay be. tween me and the accomplishment of that hope, but they have all been removed, through his active love and steady constancy; and now, when, after long years of exertion on his part, and of endurance on mine, we were to have been united, this day, I am about to be snatched from him, and to leave him widowed in heart,-though only his betrothed, not his wedded, bride. Sir, let us yet be united. You say, a few hours must close my life;-let me die, the wife of Pierre. The clergyman will be, shortly, here, who was to have joined us,—alas, how differently! -he shall join us still. Exert, sir, your influence with my parents. Your sanction, I know, will carry, with it, their's." “What could I say?" continued the surgeon,- -"it was but too clear that she was at that point where my only medicine must be to soothe the path of death, as much as might be possible. Her wish appeared to me to be as innocent and just, as it was natural. Pierre was there, also, divided between his agony at her fate being inevitable, and his fond affection, at hearing her thus speak of him, with more unreservedness of attachment, perhaps, than she had ever spoken before. I sent for her mother; to her she repeated her last request. I not only sanctioned it, but joined my voice to hers. It has been agreed, sir, that they shall be married, as soon as the priest arrives; and I only hope that he may come soon."