heart that was free and unengaged; and the same fine properties that had won his love were sure to win her love for him. He was married, and was happy beyond all that he had ever dreamed. He was happy; nay, more, he was content! for the angel of his home was more than all he had expected, and he sought and wished for nothing more. Every feeling, every thought turned towards her; and though his kindness, his benevolence, his philanthropy, were doubled rather than diminished, yet no joy was any thing to the joy of his love. For a year and six months he was as happy as any human thing can be--happier, perhaps, than any human thing ever was before. I saw his happiness; and, oh! how it made my heart expand to behold it! But then suddenly came a change. His wife had given him a child--beautiful, I hear she is, as her mother and good as her father; but ere the opening of her infant mind could add anything to the happiness of her parents, or afford even a momentary consolation to her father when distress came, her mother was seized with sudden illness, and ere five days were over she was dead." The gipsy paused, and seemed to sigh bitterly over the memories of the past; while De Vaux, whose interest in all that concerned his beloved Marian was hardly less than he felt for those things that affected himself, waited anxiously to hear more; for though the story was not unfamiliar to him, yet it was put in a new light, and told in a mild and feeling tone, that gave it a thousand times more force than ever. After a moment or two of silence the gipsy went on:--"What a change," he continued, "came upon him then! The world seemed all forgotten. He appeared as one struck with sudden blindness; and where he had beheld nothing but beauty around him before, he now beheld nothing but a blank. For hours and hours he would ride in solitude through the country, unaccompanied even by a servant. He would pass his friends when he met them as strangers, and when they spoke, would seem long ere he remembered them. He forgot all enjoyment and all occupation, and lived in the world as if it were not his proper place. Thus passed the days for near two months, when, at the end of that time, he one morning rode forth as usual alone; but he chanced--though it was seldom he mentioned whither he went--he chanced to say that he was going to the county town. He was known, too, to have a large sum of money on his person; and as he passed by the house of Mrs. Falkland, his sister, for it was at Dimden he always lived, he stopped for a few minutes." "You seem to know the whole facts as minutely as if you had followed him," said De Vaux, when the gipsy paused for a moment.