incessantly to Eva, the new-made bride of that old and unpleasant-looking English noble. Instead of feeling disgust and abomination at the depravity of the monk Thomaso, my imagination dwelt only on the success of his brutal passion. Instead of mourning over the fate of the ill-treated and murdered Victorine, I felt, I am ashamed to say it, a sort of joy that the perpetrator of such crimes had escaped with impunity, and had assumed the cardinal's hat and the highest honours. "I have no doubt he was no worse than his fellows," argued I. "Who is there that can judge of the iniquity that is performed in secret by those who appear to walk the earth as angels? To keep a fair outside is all that can be expected of us poor frail and erring creatures." This Lord Preston, now the legal possessor of one of the loveliest female forms that ever bore the name of woman, would not be injured, I argued, by suffering me to share his privileges, supposing that he knew it not,— that the world stigmatised him not with a term of ridicule! "He deserves his fate for presuming to appropriate to himself a being so supremely beautiful; he must feel he has no right by nature to such transcendant charms. They might have been my own, but for my stupid fastidiousness! She looked at me as she never looked at him: she may still be mine."

"I want to see Eva, mamma, my own dear Eva," said the child Leopold to Theresa, a few days after the union of the young baroness with Lord Preston. "She used to play with me, and sing to me pretty songs, and let me twist about her pretty hair, just as I liked. When will Eva come home?"

"She is gone to her home, Leopold," answered his mother, taking him on her knee; "she will never return to you and me."

"Then I will go to her," promptly exclaimed the boy; "I know she will be glad to see me. I can ride there like a man, and Waldorf shall go too; he will take care of me."

"Undoubtedly I will," said I, with much animation; for I was delighted with the thought of making the child an excuse for my paying an immediate visit to Lord and Lady Preston, even in the midst of their honeymoon.

“Beware, Waldorf!" whispered Al

Eva to her husband's country residence. "Resist temptation,” my beloved brother! she is unworthy of us both. Banish her beauties from your thought; seek a mistress who loves you for yourself alone, and not your gold and acres. Let me not have to mourn over your fall from virtue, which is beyond all price. She is the wife of another; invade not another's rights."

"When shall we set off, dear Waldorf?" persisted the child. "Mamma, may I not go and see dear Eva?" "Yes, certainly, if Waldorf will accompany you," said his mother." It is too soon for me to intrude upon her after her marriage."

"Let me take my little brother, then," urged Albert vehemently, even with tears. Of course, my mother will think him safe with me. Waldorf, do not go!"

"Settle it between yourselves," said the duchess, smiling; "but I suppose this little fond creature must be indulged by one of you."

"Waldorf shall go," said Leopold, seizing my hand, "because he loves

Eva best.'

There was a look of inexpressible agony passed over the countenance of Albert as the child said this; and I I thought, but I deceived myself, that I could well interpret its meaning. I recollected that my brother had once before nearly perished, from his concealed passion to that seductive, yet light-minded girl. Instead of pity for him, I felt angry that Albert should dare to retain his love for one now the object of my unhallowed thoughts. "The tempter" was, indeed, most powerfully at work within me.

"Go not near Eva more!" urged the plaintive voice of Albert; " you will repent it with bitter anguish !"

I stood a moment irresolute; there was a warning voice within me which seconded that of my brother's. "You will repent it with bitter anguish !" was echoed again and again to me from the chambers of the mind; but "the tempter" was too powerful. "I will see her once more," thought I," and then accompany the duchess and her youngest son to Germany. Albert shall be nominal master here, and enjoy my property; but I will not give up this opportunity of seeing this bewitching girl once more;" and, hardening

in my carriage with the child,-it being too far for him to ride on horseback, as he asked to do; we had a distance to go of nearly fifty miles.

When we arrived at his seat, we heard that Lord Preston was out hunting with his own fine pack of foxhounds; indeed we often had heard them baying as we approached, and once caught a sight of the whole gay equestrians in their scarlet coats, and the numerous farmers and the boors who had fallen in in the chase of the unfortunate fox, who had ran to cover; but we were not near enough to discern the person of the lordly master of those hounds, now in full cry, with the whipper-in, and grooms at their rear.

Lady Preston, the bride, they informed us, was in the grounds, walking alone; she had taken out a book and a beautiful Italian greyhound for her companions. They directed us towards a hermitage, which they said was a favourite retreat of their lady. Leopold and I set off in search of her.

"Let us surprise her, if we can," said I, softly, to the child, when we perceived her white drapery enter the hermitage at a distance. "Let us go round, and then, Leopold, you shall creep slyly in by the side of the grotto, as she is reading, whilst I stay concealed without; if you can, reach her very feet before you speak to her. The boy laughed, and promised compliance to my little device, and I stationed myself amongst some shrubs at the entrance of the grotto.

"This is sad work!" exclaimed Eva to herself, sighing, and throwing aside her book. "I can never long endure this life! A bridegroom of a week or so, leaving his lady alone to follow the hounds! I might have known my fate in marrying an Englishman. Heigho! I have played my cards amiss, in suffering the young and handsome Waldorf to slip through my fingers. Even his pale and sentimental brother, were he what he appears to be, would have been better than this Nimrod. Blessed Virgin! from whence came this beloved child? Leopold, my heart's darling! how came you here?"

"I wanted to see you, Eva," cried the lovely boy, throwing his arms round her neck. "Why did you leave me and my beautiful mamma, to go off with that ugly English lord? Do come home again."

"Is the baron here, then?" said Eva, colouring very high, and looking around.

"Yes, beloved one!" answered I, "and at your feet." For a few moments, she suffered me to embrace her knees, and press her hands in mine, regardless of the presence of the child. I, too, forgot all but her surprising loveliness.

"Are you happy, Eva?" asked I, tenderly looking up into her bewitching eyes, kneeling before her.

"How dare you ask that question, cruel Waldorf?" answered she, reproachfully." It was you who forced me into the arms of a coarse and vulgar English boor, with no nobility belonging to him but his name,—you, who have now twice given me up."

"But will not relinquish you the third time, Eva," I exclaimed passionately. "Leave this detested Nimrod to his hounds. Would that they might devour him. Fly with me to Germany, and bless me again with your love!"

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Yes, Eva," said Leopold, not comprehending in the least the tenour of my words, only that I wanted her to go back with us to Germany; 66 yes, we are come on purpose to fetch you. Mamma will be so delighted to see you, and Albert too. Do you love Albert, Eva?"

A deep blush overspread her lovely features at this mal-àpropos question of the child.

"Do you love Albert, Eva?" I repeated, looking up into the very depths of her eyes, as I still knelt at her feet. "That document of mine," I murmured," assured me that you preferred him to me; so, in a fit of generosity, I gave you up,-relinquished her I adored, to save the life of a beloved brother. Since then I have become bewildered: he loves you not."

"What document do you speak of, Waldorf?" inquired Eva, anxiously. "The Devil's Diary,"" answered I; "it tells me that you—but it cannot be- —were formed to be my greatest bane, my strongest temptation."

Eva laughed at this remark of mine,

loud and shrill. I liked not that wild, strange laugh, nor at that moment the expression of her eyes; she seemed conscious that they were betraying what they should not, for she put up one of her fair hands, and covered them.

"I am sleepy," said the young boy; "Eva, let me lie down upon your lap," and his head sank on her bosom : in a few moments he was in profound slumber.

"I will lay him down upon our wooden hermit's couch," said Eva, carelessly. "See, Waldorf, there is one in yonder corner, made of moss and leaves; he can repose there whilst we chat here a little;" and she bore the child in her arms towards the rustic pallet, drawing off her own blue scarf from her snowy shoulders at the same time, to shade him, as she said, from gnats, and the last beams of the setting sun, that darted into the furthest corner of this sylvan recess.

There was something in the whole manner of Lady Preston that gave me again an involuntary disgust; it was the second time I had ever felt such towards her. There was an indelicacy, a forwardness, in her remaining with me, an avowed and lawless lover, after the child had fallen asleep; there was an air of coquetry, also, in divesting herself and her beauties of her scarf, that before veiled them from my bold eyes. I clasped her in my arms, and she promised that evening that she would be mine.

will explain it all," said Lady Preston; "but I hear now the echoing horns of Lord Preston's returning cavalcade,— worse than the war-whoop of the wild Indian to my ears. Take up the child, dear Waldorf: give me, first, the scarf, and let us return by this short track, through the plantations, to the house, and we shall be there before them."

I obeyed in silence. Oh, how much of the peerless beauty she once possessed, I thought, has this lady lost, since she has so little regard for her virtue.

Lord Preston welcomed us heartily. It was told him that the boy Leopold pined to see again his former playmate, and that the duchess had requested me to indulge his affectionate wish, which I had with much pleasure acquiesced in.

"And how is that splendid woman, the German duchess?" inquired Lord Preston; " and that fair creature, too, you have all nicknamed Albert? Upon my word, young baron, you have an excellent taste in female beauty. Had I not beheld this fair lady previously, I think I should have entered the lists against you, for the chance of possessing the most (pardon me, my Lady Preston) the second most-beautiful women in the world."

I sat like one stupified; and again I heard from the lips of Eva that peculiar shrill, wild laugh, which was so discordant to my ears: she looked to me then like a demon.

"There is nothing like a thoroughbred Englishman for scenting out a fine woman,' exclaimed Lord Preston, joining in the laugh, but in a more boisterous manner than his lady. "Surely, my lord baron, it is not good taste to confine those exquisitely moulded limbs of hers in the clumsy habiliments of our sex! 'Tis true she always wears, since I have seen her, a surtout, or Polish pelisse; yet, still, the boddice and full-flowing petticoat, my lord, would shew her off to much more advantage."

"Lord Preston," said I, feeling my lips quiver, and my hands getting extremely cold," let me conjure you to be serious with me; and you, too, Eva -Lady Preston, I mean. - trifle not with my intense anxiety at this moment. Are you not both playing upon my credulity? Know you, certainly, then, that the being I believe to be my half-brother, Albert, is indeed a female?"

ton; "why who could want a second glance to be assured of it? I detected it in the very first interview, and sent her from the room blushing celestial, rosy red, at my rude survey of her exquisite little person."

"Know it!" repeated Eva, with an air of triumph, she tried vainly to conceal; "why she has confessed it to me a hundred times, and enjoined me, by all a woman holds dear on earth, to respect her secret. The duchess, too: laid her commands upon me; she has her private reasons. It was love for Waldorf that caused this seeming Albert to put on that disguise when but a mere child, which her scheming grandfather, Siward, eagerly consented to; he, too, had his reasons. It was love of Waldorf which made her languish, and nearly die, when she believed he was so enamoured of a certain German lady, who shall be nameless, that he proposed to marry her, when he had no other fortune but his sword to offer her. It was love to Waldorf that made her prefer his happiness to her own in a thousand instances, and delight to call him by the endearing name of brother."

"Is she not my father's child, then?" asked I, gasping for breath, whilst a thousand recollections came upon me.

"No, my lord baron," said Lady Preston, very coldly, and methought maliciously," that honour is reserved

for me.

I have confessed to Lord Preston all. I am the natural daughter of Theresa, duchess of Almar, and of the late Baron von S-, your honorable ancestor."

"Who, then, is Albert ?" I groaned aloud," who that angel who has been my companion, my adviser, my better self,-who has loved me with seraphic love?"

"She is a child, also, of the fair but frail Theresa," answered the now disgusting Eva. "She was born two years preceding me, and claims an

English father; you may see that by the extreme delicacy of her complexion. Madame, the duchess, has a few frailties to repent of, you see, though my mother." There was a buzz and murmur now in the outer hall as Eva pronounced the last words; and, supported by the upper servants, was led in, pale and faint, the very being of whom we had been speaking. She fell, exhausted, at my feet, and, holding up her hands towards me, cried aloud,

"Have I arrived too late? Oh, Waldorf, have I saved thee from the commission of a dreadful crime? She is thy sister, Waldorf! Theresa has just confessed it to me. She, and Siward, and this too lovely lady, have been in league with the powers of darkness to destroy thee. I have travelled after thee in haste, and unattended, to warn thee of thy danger. Am I too late? I must speak, dear Waldorf, even in the presence of Lord Preston, -for life is waning fast. Avoid, as thou wouldst eternal destruction, the wiles of Eva of Scagonvold. Say, hast thou fallen into her snares?"

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Angel of purity and loveliness!" eried I, raising the slender form of Albert in my arms, and clasping her to my bosom, "why was I not informed of thy disguise? why kept in ignorance of thy sex and thy affection? I am thine, beloved one! thine, thine only."

"Then I die happy, Waldorf," said the lovely creature, clinging to me; "I may own in death what in life I never should have spoken, Be virtuous, my own, my second half, and we shall meet again."

In another moment my arms encompassed a form which had no vitality within it! The angelic spirit of her who loved so purely, that it was buried in the depths of her being, was fled to her own bright abode; and I am left, indeed, alone!