“The truth now flashed upon me. She took my arm and we left the room. It was a beautiful night, so like the present. I lamented the fate of him who must bid adieu to earth, when it was so lovely, and on a scaffold! and I longed to know the tie which bound my sister to him, but I dared not question her. We had already left the suburbs of Oxford, and the dense crowd was in sight at a short distance. She broke the silence, ‘Henry, do not hold me, when I quit your arm; do not, for my mother’s sake. That vow is sacred to us both!’ We had now reached the place of death. The sun gleamed upon the block. I thanked God that he was to be beheaded as a gentleman, and not hanged as a dog. He came upon the scaffold with a proud step, and a haughty mien. His head was uncovered, and dark were the beautiful locks, which hung over his neck;--but that head, which might have lain on my sister’s bosom, was to be as a piece of wood for the axe of the executioner! My sister never trembled, but gazed upon him. He started as he looked upon the block! He approached,--the executioner was about to unbuckle the sword of the condemned cavalier, when, with a proud glance, he forbade him. He knelt:--his lips moved in prayer. His eyes fell upon the marks of military honour on his breast. ‘Sir William,’ he said, ‘thou art no more.’ “At his name, my sister gave one scream of madness; he started up at the sound, and his eyes were upon Eleanor. ‘My Eleanor!’ he exclaimed: she rushed to the scaffold; but in a moment he was bound down to the block, and the axe fell, but not before a loud shout came from his lips, ‘God save King Charles!’ and there was my sister kneeling over him, and then attempting to snatch the head from the executioner, in her frenzy. I sprung forward--I heard a fall--Eleanor was dead upon the headless trunk! I rushed home with the lifeless body in my arms, and there pronounced a vow of revenge upon the rebels, by whom I had lost a sister. “My books were disregarded, and I joined my brave uncle. But--this night is the exact type of that awful night! and I--have no sister!” He buried his face in his hands. In sympathy, tears were flowing down the cheeks of Anne. He raised his eyes, and blessed her for one tear shed over the memory of Eleanor. He even ventured to take her hand--and it was not withdrawn--“Excuse me,” he said, “I cannot leave the subject soon, as I cannot leave her grave when I visit it, until the dews are falling upon my prostrate form. It is sacred. You remind me of her. And will the fair Anne Houghton refuse to be unto me what my Eleanor was?”