and for days after the arrival of one, her step would fall more lightly, and her voice take a happier tone. After the departure of her nephew, Mrs. Jermyn removed with her niece to France. Her means were straitened, and she could live more economically on the Continent; and there, after the lapse of some few years, she died, leaving Mary Murray all her little property, and advising her to join her brother in India as soon as she conveniently could, but to remain as boarder in a convent till arrangements to that effect could be made. The poor girl obeyed the wishes of her last and only friend, and became for a time the inmate of a cloister; but her thoughts and wishes all tended to the East, and she longed for the arrival of her brother's next letter--the answer to that in which she had made him aware of her loss, and of her wish to go to him. The mail arrived; there was no letter for _her_, but it brought news of an engagement in which John Murray's regiment had fought bravely and suffered much. His name was not in the list of killed or wounded, but he was reported "missing," probably a prisoner to the enemy, or drowned in the river, on the banks of which the contest had taken place. The grief of her, who had no other tie of love in the world may be imagined; it could scarcely be described. Nevertheless she was young, and the young are generally sanguine. Almost without her being conscious of it, she still cherished a hope that he might be restored to her; but months rolled on, and brought no tidings. Then it was that, sick at heart, and weary even of the hope that was so constantly disappointed, her thoughts turned to the cloister as a refuge from her lonely sorrow. She had no object of interest beyond the walls; the nuns were kind and good; the duties of the convent such as she loved to fulfill. She took the white vail, and at the end of the year's novitiate, the black. The service of final dedication had begun, when a stranger arrived at the convent gate, and requested to see Miss Murray on business of importance. He was desired by the porteress to wait till the ceremony, which had commenced about five minutes previously, was ended; and ignorant of the name of the nun who was making her profession, he of course consented to the request. In about an hour's time, a young figure, robed in black, and vailed, stood at the grate to ask his business with her. He uttered an exclamation of alarm and consternation when he perceived Miss Murray in the dress of a nun. Then recovering himself he informed her, as cautiously as his surprise permitted, that he had come from her brother, who had been made prisoner, and was now restored to his regiment, after having endured much, and met with a number of adventures, of which a letter he then offered her would give her a full account. It ought, he acknowledged, to have been delivered a day or two earlier, but he had been much engaged since his arrival in