round the room. Her eye rested on various objects, as on old and once familiar things, and when she had finished her survey, in that same sweet voice which had so often before been heard in that very room, for it had been her chamber in former days, she exclaimed, "The same-all as it was.-All.-Oh, heart, I would all were the same," and overpowered by emotion she sank back upon the pillow.

At this moment Mr. Ormington entered the apartment. He caught the last tones of that voice, and to his ears it sounded like the faint chords of melancholy music, which, dying in soft cadence upon the willing ear, recal to us strains heard in by-gone times, when the affections were fresh, and the passions young.

Yes, there lay the emaciated form of Constance, Lady Hargrave-Lady Hargrave no longer-what did she there on such a night, and in such a guise?

Great indeed was the alteration which Constance had undergone even since Mr. Ormington had last seen her, a few short weeks ago in the sunlight of that autumnal eve in the old picture gallery.

As she lay in that sleep-like trance the morning of her death, her cheek ashen as though the destroyer had in truth passed over it, her breathing scarcely perceptible-her pulse all but motionless, Mr. Ormington bent over her with a tearful fondness. He beheld her as one against whom the summons of the destroyer had gone forth. Divested of all outward semblance of honor, her rank and title unknown in the midst of that pitiless storm, she had returned to the home of her childhood, as a departed poetess beautifully expresses it, "the home of her wildhood," returned to die. Disease, more felt than the physical, had laid its heavy hand upon Constance. In vain Mr. Ormington strove to calm her mind, or to learn the cause of her unexpected and mysterious visit, She studiously avoided the topic. There was evidently something which pressed too heavily upon her heart ever to be told to her foster-father. A something which she would not or could not disclose. But Mr. Ormington was no ordinary man. He had the power of addressing himself to the feelings and to the heart, and surely no appeal is more powerful than that felt and tenderly expressed pity for our woes, which commiserates without wounding, and which ministers to the disordered mind whilst seemingly unconscious of the disease with which it is infected.

From repeated conversation with his "dear child," as he still called her, he ultimately gleamed that her husband had suddenly

returned from abroad. Constance had before heard some weeks since that Sir Henry Hargrave had married a foreigner, years ago, whom he had left behind him at Florence, and that she had made her way to England, and had written to Constance in terms of the bitterest reproach.

Mr. Ormington on his visit had advised Constance not to leave her husband's roof until she had ascertained the truth or falsehood of the charge, and she acting upon Mr. Ormington's advice enclosed the letter to Sir Henry, a few posts afterwards bringing a denial of the imputation. But still Constance was unhappy. In the midst of her splendour she was hastening to her grave, and then to crown all, came the former Lady Hargrave producing undoubted proofs of her title. Upbraiding her, she drove the arrow home to her heart, and poor Constance, unfriended and alone, left the temple of her dishonor.

CHAPTER VIII.

The strength of Constance waned fast. Life was ebbing, and to her the world and its concerns was rapidly closing. She grew weaker and weaker, and in a few days the physician announced the fatal intelligence that his art had been baffled. Constance knew it, and she smiled as she exclaimed, "When I think upon the days of my childhood, and memory pictures all the past scenes of many an artless wile, the willow beneath which we sat and listened to the ripple of the tide, and the rose beds from whence he plucked the fragrant flowers to bind among my hair, I live over again the best and the worst, the happiest and most miserable of my existence. It could never be with me again as in the days of yore; the smiling face can never veil the aching heart.

Time sped. It was now the month of September, and Constance yet lingered upon earth. One afternoon Mr. Ormington had been out on business-the business of the chamber of deathwhen, on his return home, he was accidentally caught in a heavy shower of rain. In ascending to his dressing-room to divest himself of his damp clothing, he had occasion to pass the room in which Constance lay. An unusual sound-the deep, stifled cry of grief smote upon his ear. He hastily changed his dress, and descended to Constance's chamber, where Edward hung over the almost lifeless form of his beloved his hand clasped in the cold and clammy grasp of hers.

A smile was upon Constance's lips. She had lived long enough now, although instead of being the living wife of her adorer, she was the now plighted bride of death.

And what a scene was that two so young and one so beautiful, for Constance was beautiful still-though on her cheek was that bright and glowing spot, the hectic flush of consumption. Their blighted feelings and broken hearts were the scorpion children of their passions.

All things earthly must have an end-even sorrow cannot endure for ever, and when all that was mortal of Constance had been consigned to the tomb, the violence of Edward's grief subsided into a fixed, habitual and quiet melancholy.

A few days before that event took place, he related to Mr. Ormington all the circumstances which led to the fatal consummation of his love for Constance. "If Constance and I had never parted," were his words, "we might have been innocent and happy. But it is useless now to mourn over these frail memorials of my hopes. Regret has come too late. Sir Henry was determined, like a libertine as he was, to possess himself of my prize. I will not dwell upon the machinations he used. Suffice it that he conquered. I have since learned that he defamed me, and spoke of College defections, and I know not what, and having poisoned Constance's mind in an evil hour, his serpent tongue beguiled the unsuspecting girl into a promise to be his bride.

"He triumphed over my fall. We met abroad in hostile encounter, for I then had learned the cheat; and, in short, was slain by my hand, but not then. He returned home, and in my burning rage I challenged him to another encounter, when from a distance I beheld the wreck he had made-and-enough-he is dead. But I anticipate. No sooner had Constance sealed her fate, than palled and satiated with her charms, the villain sought a foreign shore, when striving to dissipate my grief, I met him mingling with the gay and revelling with the revellers. I met him reckless, with one upon his arm, who-but enough of this. His ashes are returning to their grave.

Remorse and painful thought," the keen knife of endurance" had dug their furrows deep in Edward's brow, and never more did a smile light up that care-worn countenance.

When death had laid his cold finger upon her who had been his love, his life, his betrothed, his heart lay interred in her coffin. Proud and high toned philosophy or cold and phlegmatic scepticsm may sneer at what they will term weakness, but no

unhallowed murmur escaped his lips, no impure desire ever more mingled with his thoughts of the departed. It is true he often watered her grave with his tears; but had he not thus relieved his anguished heart it must have broken with its weight of sadness. These visits to her tomb, though they tended to keep alive the remembrance of a fatal passion, were also calculated to foster holier and humbler feelings.

And she went down to the grave her shame undisclosed. And every heart that knew her mourned the death of one so gifted and so beautiful.

As Mr. Ormington gazed upon the lifeless form for the last time, big and manly tears rolled down his cheeks, for he felt that although he had not been left to pilgrimage alone, one of the ties of earth had been torn from him. And as Constance lay enshrined in her coffin, about shortly to be conveyed to her last home, "the home appointed for all the living," the beholder might well have exclaimed in the language of the poet :—

"Her's is the loveliness of death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;

But beauty with that fearful bloom,

That hue which haunts it to the tomb,

Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of feeling past away,

Spark of that flame, perchance, of heavenly birth

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth."

And now all lie together in the grave. It may be that in the memory of some hoary-headed villager, this tale of "Pride and Jealousy" may awaken a remembrance of the lady, who when he was young poured violets into his lap, and of the kind old man, whose lamp of life expired at a goodly age; or of the younger companion who supported his tottering steps, and who now reposes in the silent sleep of death by the side of the "lady of his love," at the feet of the foster-father, whose blessing had so often been poured upon the heads of both,

END OF VOL. I.

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