"I had presumed to hope that I might one day deliver these articles of value with my own hands to their interesting possessor, and taste the pleasure of recalling to her remembrance the welcome with which she used to receive me at her nurse Rueda's house, when I went laden with fruit and flowers to visit my charming little play-fellow. Providence has ordained it otherwise, and death arrests my progress. "The mantle of scarlet cloth, lined with ermine, which I wished to preserve and restore with the rest, was stolen from me. I commit all that remains to the care of Mr. Playfair, that excellent, may I venture to call him, friend, to whose goodness I am deeply indebted----" The concluding lines of this memoir were scarcely legible, and traced with a pencil in characters so unlike the writing which preceded, as to prove that an effort of expiring strength had added them by way of supplement to the narrative. A certificate was appended to it, sealed and signed with the name of Charles Russell, who confirmed the statement which it set forth; and Zorilda having with breathless impatience devoured the entire, fell upon her knees, to adore that Power which thus signally interposed to sustain her in the darkest hour of adversity. After a passionate thanksgiving offered with instinctive glow from her inmost soul, the cruel thought of Algernon returned with all its force. Oh! had these tidings arrived to crown his virtuous, constant love, how blest had been Zorilda! But, like a lamp suddenly introduced into the depths of a dungeon, the light which had just fallen on her history only seemed to mark more clearly the desolation of her lot. She read Mr. Playfair's letter again and again, and returned as often to the narrative of Colonel Dalton, so absorbed in anxious scrutiny of their contents, that for a long time she totally forgot another inclosure which still remained unexamined. Catching it hastily, with the eagerness of one desirous to repair an ungrateful omission by increased activity, she unfolded the other parcel, and opening a box of transparent agate, drew forth a splendid Maltese cross of the richest brilliants, then a miniature, and lastly, a bracelet of the finest soft dark hair, to which was fastened a ticket, addressed "TO MY BELOVED ZORILDA, FROM HER MOTHER." The word _Mother_, that magic word, containing within itself all that the human heart intuitively acknowledges of tender and protective, struck at this moment on Zorilda's heart with all the power of nature and novelty, while her emotions almost seemed to threaten existence.