all-radiant complexion; her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn sob by sob with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too certainly the truth! Her faults were punished bitterly on earth, and happily that punishment had worked its fitting end—these faults were all repented, were all amended now. Perhaps at no time of her youthful bloom had Marian been so sweet, so truly lovely, as now when her young days were numbered. All the asperity and harshnesses, the angles as it were of her character, mellowed down into a calm and unrepining cheerfulness. And oh! with what delicious tenderness did Annabel console, and pray with, and caress—oh! they were indeed happy! indeed happy for those last months, those lovely sisters. For Annabel’s delight at seeing the dear Marian of happier and better days once more beside her in their old chamber, beside her in the quiet garden, beside her in the pew of the old village church, had, for the time, completely overpowered her fears for her sister’s health, and, as is almost invariably the case in that most fatal, most insidious of disorders, she constantly was flattered with vain hopes that her Marian was amending, that the next spring would see her again well and happy. Vain hopes! indeed vain hopes—but which of mortal hopes is other? The cold mists of November were on the hills and in the glens of Wharfdale, the trees were stripped of their last leaves, the grass was sere and withered, the earth cheerless, the skies comfortless, when, at the same predestined window, the sisters sat watching the last gleam of the wintry sun fade on the distant hill tops. What was that flash far up the road? That sound and ringing report? Another! and another! the evident reports of musketry. And lo! a horseman flying—a wild, fierce troop pursuing—the foremost rides bareheaded, but the blue scarf that flutters in the air shows him a loyal cavalier; the steel caps and jack boots of the pursuers point them out evidently puritans; there are but twenty of them; and lo! the fugitive gains on them—heaven! he turns from the highroad, crosses the steep bridge at a gallop, he takes the park-gate at a leap, he cuts across the turf, and lo! the dalesmen and the tenants have mustered to resist; a short, fierce struggle—the roundheads are beat back—the fugitive, now at the very hall doors, is preserved. The door flew open, he staggered into the well-known vestibule, opened the parlor door with an accustomed hand, and reeled into the presence of the sisters, exhausted with fatigue, pale from the loss of blood, faint with his mortal wounds; yet he spoke out in a clear voice—“In time, in time, thank God, in time to make some reparation, to ask for pardon ere I die!” and with these words De Vaux, for he it was, staggered up to his injured wife, and, dropping on his knees, cast his arms round her waist, and burying his head in her lap, exclaimed in faltering tones—“Pardon me, Marian, pardon before I die—pardon me as