solution of a problem, that has long taxed the ingenuity and embarrassed the reason. His sentiments explained the mystery in his manner, the discrepancy between his professions and performances, and like the spear of Ithuriel, dispelled at once the illusion of her fancy, and made him assume before her his own proper character. She fixed her large dark eyes upon his countenance, as though striving to recall the image she had worshipped there. She saw only the arrogant sneer of skepticism, and the smile of selfish exultation. Her sensitive heart recoiled with horror at the prospect of the cheerless future, which in one fearful moment passed like a vision before her, and with a piercing cry she fell fainting to the floor. The husband calmly summoned the maids as he left the apartment, while the father, with a heart distracted between pity and anger, tenderly lifted her lifeless form and conveyed her to a couch. Robert, the second son of Peter Courtenay and Yoland, succeeded his father upon the throne of Constantinople. An inglorious reign of seven years left the empire in a distracted state, and an early death transferred the crown to his infant son Baldwin. The barons of the Greek Empire felt the necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of a man and a hero; and messengers were despatched to the veteran King of Jerusalem, to beg him to accept the imperial purple, and become the father of the young prince, by bestowing upon him the hand of his second daughter in marriage. The position and authority of Jean de Brienne as the Emperor of Constantinople, gave him power to punish Frederic's baseness, and he speedily signified to the emperor, that the might of his sword, backed by the strength of the Greek forces, was now ready to enforce the decrees of the pope. Frederic, finding that he could no longer with any safety defer his pilgrimage, ordered a general rendezvous of his troops at Brundusium preparatory for departure. Before however the appointed time for sailing had arrived, a pestilence broke out in the camp, numbers died and greater numbers deserted, and the emperor himself, after having embarked and remained at sea three days, returned, declaring that his health would not admit of his taking the voyage. Exulting in the fortunate circumstance that had released him from the dreaded expedition, he hastened his march to Germany.