"With a woman's delicate perception and depth of pity, Sabina gained that knowledge; and with honor unspeakable she silently read the treasured secrets of the gentle heart thus fatally wounded--the evil from which she had sedulously striven to guard her pupil, had not been successfully averted--Mary St. Elan had already given away her guileless heart. But her sorrows were not doomed to last; for soon after that period when the law pronounced her free from control respecting her worldly affairs, the last of the St. Elans passed peacefully away to a better world, bequeathing the mansion house and estate of St. Elan's Wood to Sabina and her heirs. In Sabina's estimation, however, this munificent gift was the 'price of blood:' as but for _her_ instrumentality, the fatal knowledge would not have been imparted; but for _her_ the ancestral woods and pleasant home might have descended to children's children in the St. Elan's line,--tainted, indeed, and doomed; but now the race was extinct. "There were many persons who laughed at Sabina's sensitive feelings on this subject, which they could not understand; and even well-meaning, pious folk, thought that she carried her strict notions, too far. Yet Sabina remained immovable; nor would she ever consent that the wealth thus left should be enjoyed by her or hers. "Thus the deserted mansion still remains unclaimed, though it will not be long ere it is appropriated to the useful and beneficent purpose specified in Mary St. Elan's will--namely, failing Sabina and her issue, to be converted into a lunatic asylum--a kind of lunatic alms-house for decayed gentlewomen, who, with the requisite qualifications, will here find refuge from the double storms of life assailing them, poor souls! both from within and without." "But what became of Sabina, and what interest has your son in this picture?" asked my friend of old Mrs. L----, as that venerable lady concluded her narration; "for if none live to claim the property, why does it still remain thus?"