Pity is itself a gentle, an endearing sentiment; but when claimed by a being we already love, who shall paint the going forth of the whole soul, in the blended sympathy! If there is an earthly feeling pure from self, worthy of heaven, it is this! Had Alfred encountered Caroline in health, amid scenes of pleasure and of gaiety, himself free from the disgrace and ruin which now attached to him; nay, with a knowledge that her seeming want of truth had been but obedience to the tyrannical commands of a parent; that her heart was still his; that, in short, every obstacle to their union was removed by the death of poor Willoughby;--how soon, in such a case, he might have been able to have separated thoughts of her and of happiness from the heart-rending remembrance of his brother; at what distant period of time he could, in short, have sought a paradise on the very shore where that brother had become a wreck, it is impossible to say. But when instead of all this, her idea was presented to his mind under circumstances so new, so terrible, so far removed from selfish joy, which, when mingled with thoughts of Willoughby, would have seemed almost a sacrilege; then it was that an overwhelming interest in her fate took possession of his whole soul unresisted, consisting of fears, not of hopes; and that soul full of misery, was almost paralysed by the memory and presence of sorrow. He continued to gaze, till a sense of the most appalling dread, despite the assurance of the doctor that there was no immediate danger, crept over his heart, so much did the perfect stillness of the lovely features resemble that of death. His terror momentarily increased--he bent--he knelt--he listened in breathless anguish, till the throbbing of his own pulses might have been heard, but he could catch no sound of respiration. He looked up with a sort of despairing yet questioning expression in the doctor's face. "I by no means," said the authority so appealed to, "apprehend, as I have already stated, any immediate danger. This species of trance has continued without intermission, ever since the first rash communication of the fatal intelligence." Then, fond of hearing himself talk, and possibly believing that he spoke to a near relative, acquainted of course with all the circumstances, he continued to exhibit his powers of oratory thus: "The shock was, I fear, altogether too much for any sensitive mind; what with the abrupt mode of communication, and the manner of the gentleman's death, so terrible--murdered they say, by his own twin brother!" "No, sir!" exclaimed Alfred, starting up with sudden fierceness, and grasping the doctor's arm, "he was not murdered by his brother; and that," he added, with an altered tone and manner, clasping his hands, and raising his eyes to heaven, "when her spirit awakes in the realms of the blessed it will know."