"Are we indeed united?" said he, while his soul hung on the echoes of that sweet strain, "and shall we be united for ever?" "For ever and ever," returned the voice of the worshipper; and the whole choir, joining in, in a full burst of harmony, repeated again and again, "for ever and ever." THE BOSOM SERPENT. "I have something to tell you, Rosamond," said Cecil Dormer, taking Rosamond Clifford on his knee and seating himself in a corner of her mother's sofa--"Don't you want to hear a story to-night?" "Is it a sure enough story?" asked Rosamond, "or a fairy tale, like the Arabian Nights Entertainment?" "Every word of it truth," answered Cecil--"though some portions of it may 'freeze your young blood.' It is of a little girl, about your own age, and a woman who I verily believe is Lucifer himself, dressed in woman's clothes." "You have excited my curiosity," said Mrs. Clifford closing her book, and taking a seat on the sofa--"for as every story must have a hero, I suspect you are the hero of your own." "Please tell it," cried Rosamond, with the impatience of a petted child--"I want to hear about the little girl." "Well," said Cecil, "you recollect how bright and beautiful the moon shone last night, and how peaceful and lovely everything looked. As I was returning to my lodgings, rather later than usual, I passed through a lane, which shortened the distance, though the walk itself was rough and unpleasant. As I was indulging in my old habit of building castles by the moonlight, I heard the most piercing shrieks issuing from a low building to which I was directly opposite. There must be murder going on, thought I, and like the giant, I imagined I could 'smell the blood of an Englishman.' I rushed to the door, almost shook it from its hinges in opening it, and found myself in the narrow, dark passage--but, guided by the cries, I soon reached another door, which I opened with as little ceremony, and what do you think I saw?" "Were they killing the poor little girl?" cried Rosamond, drawing a long breath, her eyes growing larger and darker. "You shall hear. In the centre of the room, there was a large, iron-framed woman, with her right hand extended, brandishing a leathern thong over the head of a pale, shrinking girl, whom she grasped with her left hand, and from whose bare shoulders the blood was oozing through grooves that thong had cut. You may well start and shudder, for a more hideous spectacle never met the eye. She was just in the act of inflicting another lash, when I arrested her arm with a force which must have made it ache to the marrow of the bones, and caused her involuntarily to loosen her hold of her victim, who fell exhausted to the floor. The woman turned on me, with the fury of a wolf interrupted in its bloody banquet." "Did she look like the picture of the wolf in little _Red Riding Hood_?" asked Rosamond.