We must now return for a moment to the morning of that day, whose sun we have just seen go down, and to Blanche Delaware, who sat in her solitary chamber, with the world feeling all a wide lonely desert around her. Not a month before, there had not been a happier girl upon the earth. She had been contented; she had possessed her own little round of amusements and occupations. She had music, and books, and flowers, and nature, and two beings that she dearly loved, constantly beside her, and she had never dreamed of more. The buoyancy of health, and a happy disposition, had raised her mind above the low estate to which her family had been reduced; and a refined taste, with that noblest quality of the human mind, which may be called the power of admiration, had taught her, like the bee, to extract sweetness and enjoyment from every flower that Heaven scattered on her way. But since that time, she had been taught another lesson--She had been taught to love! That passion had given a splendour to the world that it had never before possessed. It had painted the flowers with richer colours--it had spread a sunshine of its own over the face of nature--it had given new soul to the music that she loved. The dream had been broken--the adventitious splendour had passed away; but it left not the flowers, or the music, or the face of nature, as they were before. It took from them their own beauties, as well as that which it had lent them. All had withered, and died; and the world was a desert. She had wept long, and bitterly; but she had dried her eyes, and bathed away the traces of her tears, when her father entered her room, and enquired tenderly after her health. "You do not look well, indeed, my dear Blanche," he said. "I wish you would send to Emberton for Mr. Tomkins."