The two ladies took her hands in theirs, and kindly pressed them. They gazed upon her large bright eyes, and almost, for the moment, doubted that no light had ever entered them, until tears had come trickling down her cheeks. They took a seat beside her, on the mossy stone. She spoke not, and her hand returned not their touch. They knew not how to console her. To their questions concerning her past life, her friends, and native country, she had given no definite answer: not because she seemed unwilling to detail all the facts, but because she seemed never to have known them herself; a creature of mere feelings, and thoughts, with no faculty for earth. Her existence had, evidently, been but a dream, beautiful, though troubled: and she had, hitherto, passed through it, like a bird, through every land, feeling the sunshine of the laughing sky, breathing the fragrance of wood and vale, at morn and eve, and echoing a part in the universal chorus, but knowing no more; careless of all things but flight and happiness. She raised the hands of the two young ladies to her lips, and turning paler and paler, at length dropped them, and shrunk back with a low and half suppressed shriek of horror. “Disappointment, a broken heart, and death! Yes, such a lot will be yours; and so beautiful! Ask me not, but I know:--these hands, they tear from my soul the sybil leaves of awful prophecy, which fate has given me, and my voice must scatter them forth to you. Would that I knew not the dark characters!--that my mind was as blind to your future destiny as these shrouded orbs!” “Hold!” exclaimed young Dawson, as he seized Katharine’s hand, which the blind prophetess had, once more, taken. “Hold!--speak not another word of thy frightful thoughts. Nay, touch not her hand. Katharine, could you feel disappointment should nothing be spared to us but love? Can your heart be broken when love encircles it? Death,--name it not!” “Here, here is the cause. You ruin each other. Love and death are linked together. But, sir, be peaceable and loyal in the midst of rebellion, and happiness may yet be yours.” A faint smile passed over Dawson’s face, which had before been clouded; and with an attempt at gaiety, he returned,-- “And am I not in the garb of peace? My cap has not the nodding plume of war, but the quiet and simple flower of the valley. What two beautiful shields I have secured for myself in danger, my own Katharine, and sister Alice.” “Beware,” repeated the prophetess, “of war. Change not the flower for the cockade; and let none be your shields but those whom you now protect.” No longer did she seem the soft and mournful child, who had longed so earnestly for the power of vision. She was altogether changed. “Follow me not. Detain me not. I shall weep for you all. Farewell, until we meet again,” and she instantly withdrew, and darkness hid her steps. * * * * *