She flung herself wildly upon the fallen tree, and sobbed convulsively. “Be calm;” said Mark Antony, pressing her hand; “I have given you pain; but Heaven knows I would not, if--” “No, no,” exclaimed the girl, “you meant no harm; but where guilt abides, the conscience takes alarm. For a sad, sad, twelvemonth your’s is the only heart that has warmed to me; your’s the only ear to which I would confide my story. Hear me; and then say whether the crime or the retribution has been the greater. I am calm; but it seems to me a melancholy pleasure to disclose to a being who will sympathize, how much I have sinned, and how much I have suffered.”’ She rose,--walked a few paces to a rock from which the mountain streamlet dropped into a basin which itself had formed; and having bathed her aching temples in the water, returned, and, to a most attentive listener, she thus detailed her history. CHAPTER XI. THE STORY OF THE WANDERING ACTRESS “What will not woman, when she loves? “Yet lost, alas! who can restore her? She lifts the latch--the wicket moves- And now the world is all before her.” Rogers. I was born in a village on the coast of Sussex. My father, after five-and-twenty years’ service, had retired from the army on a pension, with a small sum of money he had saved while acting in the West Indies as a quarter-master; and settling in his native village, he married the orphan daughter of a clergyman. The union was happy; and the evening of an adventurous life promised to wear quietly way. But, like all mortal expectations, my father’s dream of happiness proved unreal, for my mother died in giving birth to me, leaving another child behind her, a boy, two years older than myself. My parents were warmly attached to each other, and the old soldier felt his bereavement acutely; but he bore up against his visitation like a man, and endeavoured by a devoted attachment to the living, to show how fondly he regarded the memory of the dead. Indeed, it was little wonder that in my brother and myself, the widower should centre his affections. No relative of my mother was alive; and the only kinsman of my father was a half-brother, a dozen years older than himself; a man in every way unamiable. Josiah Rawlings was the village lawyer; a being without a heart, or such a heart as is untouched by the widow’s agony, unmoved by the orphan’s tears. He was mean, sordid, and vindictive; had realized much wealth; but on that ill-acquired money, the bitter curses of many a ruined family were entailed. Josiah’s appearance was very remarkable. As for as respected height, he was tall enough for a grenadier, and in his fleshy proportions, light enough for a jockey. His hollow cheek and small grey eyes were in good keeping with his gaunt and bony figure; and at a look the stranger would set him down a knave, a miser, or a union of both.