It was at length agreed, that on the following day Frederick Langdale might be permitted to visit her;—his varied fractures were reduced, and the wound on the head had assumed a favourable appearance. The carriage was ordered to convey him to the Hardings at one, and the physicians advised by all means that Maria should be apprized of and prepared for the meeting the day previous to its taking place. Those who are parents, and those alone, will be able to understand the tender solicitude, the wary caution with which both her father and mother proceeded in a disclosure, so important as the medical men thought to her recovery—so careful that the coming joy should be imparted gradually to their suffering child, and that all the mischiefs resulting from an abrupt announcement should be avoided. They sat down by her—spoke of Frederick—Maria joined in the conversation—raised herself in her bed—by degrees, hope was excited that she might soon again see him—this hope was gradually improved into certainty—the period at which it might occur spoken of—that period again progressively diminished: the anxious girl caught the whole truth—she knew it—she was conscious that she would behold him on the morrow—she burst into a flood of tears and sank down upon her pillow. At that moment the bright sun, which was shining in all its splendour, beamed into the room, and fell strongly upon her flushed countenance. ‘Draw down the blind, my love,’ said Mrs. Harding to her husband. Harding rose and proceeded to the window. A shriek of horror burst from him—‘She is there!’ exclaimed the agitated man. ‘Who?’ cried his astonished wife. ‘She—she—the horrid she!’ Mrs. Harding ran to the window and beheld, standing on the opposite side of the street, with her eyes fixed attentively on the house—MARTHA, THE GIPSY. ‘Draw down the blind, my love, and come away; pray come away,’ said Mrs. Harding. Harding drew down the blind. ‘What evil is at hand? What misery is impending?’ sobbed Harding. A loud scream from his wife, who had returned to the bedside, was the horrid answer to his painful question. Maria was dead! Twice of the thrice he had seen this dreadful fiend in human shape; each visitation was (as she had foretold) to surpass the preceding ones in its importance of horror.—What could surpass this? There, before the afflicted parents, lay their innocent child stretched in the still sleep of death; neither of them believed it true—it seemed like a dreadful dream. Harding was bewildered, and turned from the corpse of his beloved to the window he had just left.—Martha was gone—and he heard her singing a wild and joyous air at the other end of the street.