Was Flora Leslie happy? Her end was well-nigh accomplished. She saw herself already mistress of a magnificent establishment, surrounded with splendor, receiving the homage due to her beauty; but happiness had fled from her bosom, sweet peace from her pillow, for she felt that she had trampled and crushed to the earth, the hopes of a breaking heart. Charlie Morton was delighted when he learned the engagement. He hastened to tell Annie of it. “I once hoped to have seen you his bride, Annie. I think he loved you; but if you did not love him, of course, you were right not to accept him.” Annie listened calmly, and her good brother never knew that he was the messenger that brought darkness and despair to her soul. A new light broke upon her. Could her friend have been treacherous? But it could not be, Charlie must have been mistaken. She recalled Robert’s fond words, his despair, when he left her so short a time before. “It cannot be,” she exclaimed; “he loves me still! I will not believe it! Even though it be true, he shall not marry this false girl! I will tell him all!” She wrote a hurried, passionate note to Robert, in which she confessed how much she loved him; there was no coldness now—all pride was gone—merged in the wild thought that she might yet recall him to her side. Impatiently she waited for his answer, which she felt would be life or death to her. Who shall tell the agony of Robert Dennyn when he received the note, just as he was setting forth for his home in B. “Once,” he wrote in answer, “Annie Morton knew that she might have asked any thing of me, even life itself—now I am irrevocably bound to another.” Annie Morton received the note; she took it from the servant, as she stood trembling beside that same window where she sat when first presented to our readers; but how unlike the bright, beautiful girl who then sprang forth so gayly to meet her beloved father, and the strange youth who was to exert so great an influence upon her destiny. Beautiful she was still, for twenty summers had not yet passed over her head; and beauty cannot leave those she has loved so early—the gift will linger till many a year of suffering has passed over the heads of those upon whom she has bestowed the fairy talisman. Annie read the note—a look of despair stole over her face—her eyes gleamed wildly. She crushed the note in her hand, then tore it into a thousand pieces. For a moment she stood gazing out. A carriage passed. She knew that Robert was in it—and as it rolled on, so passed away from Annie Morton all light and hope eternally. She left the spot where she had been standing, passed slowly up the broad staircase to her room, reached the bed, and consciousness left her. They found her there some hours after—but reason had left her. She had sown the wind in her folly, she was reaping the whirlwind in her misery.