In doing so, however, it is not our intention to fatigue the reader with a minute account of the long and tedious days, and still more wretched nights, spent by our heroine after the shock given to her delicate constitution by the painful and unexpected adventure in the chapel, and by the subsequently reported death of her mother under peculiarly awful and afflicting circumstances. The reader has doubtless more truly imagined her condition during the first paroxysms of the fever, than we could describe it. Down to the time when her favourite and confidant was permitted to enter her room, the daily occurrences of her yet endangered life were sad and monotonous enough, but the paramount cravings of diseased nature once assuaged, her mental excitement once more rose in the ascendant. Not that her reason ever became deranged, except from violent febrile action during the height of the attack; however feeble her physical organization, her mental powers were clear and unclouded, and her spirits, though of necessity somewhat broken, were firm and elastic. The truth is, that she did not believe the assertion of the Recluse by which the nuptial ceremony was so dreadfully interrupted. She had indeed a feeling of superstitious reverence for whatever came from his lips, but she had also seen the wild fire of his eye when under deep excitement, and she did not therefore give implicit confidence to any declaration he should make. This questioning of his oracular authority was an after-consideration it is true, and was itself prompted by other feelings, having their foundation in the affections of the heart. She could not believe that her lover was her own brother; her feelings toward him were peculiar--powerful, and different from the love of mere kindred. Besides, there were little almost undefinable circumstances in the intercourse of their halcyon days, which she did not believe, could in the nature of man, have taken place between brother and sister. She most truly thought that her lover and herself were expressly created for each other; that their union had been decreed in heaven. That in the first dawnings of their mutual understanding of each other, there had been electrical, spiritual and ever sublime transmissions of mutual intelligence and exquisite pleasure, which could not exist between children of the same parents. These were some of the reasonings which first led her to doubt the infallibility of the Recluse, or rather this was something like the process by which she arrived at firm and undoubting conviction. She viewed the case in this light from the very first moment of unclouded perception, but at first it was a wild tumultuous and suffocating mixture of vague perceptions, and scarcely permitted hopes. As she gradually analyzed her feelings, and examined the reasons for her convictions, the truth dawned more and more clearly upon her view. She was one day sitting, propped up on her couch, during