Springtide was past, and great was the stir and bustle for the approaching nuptials between Oliver Chadwyck and the Lady Eleanor. All the yeomanry, inhabitants of the hamlets of Honorsfield, Butterworth, and Healey, were invited to the wedding. Dancers and mummers were provided; wrestlers and cudgel-players, with games and pastimes of all sorts, were appointed. The feasts were to be holden for three days, and masks, motions, and other rare devices, were expected to surpass and eclipse every preceding attempt of the like nature. Eleanor sat in her lonely bower. It was the night before the bridal. To-morrow would see her depart in pageantry and pomp--an envied bride! Yet was her heart heavy, and she could not refrain from weeping. She sought rest; but sleep was denied. The owl hooted at her window; the bat flapped his leathern wings; the taper burned red and heavily, and its rays were tinged as though with blood; the fire flung out its tiny coffin; the wind sobbed aloud at every cranny, and wailed piteously about the dwelling. "Would that I might read my destiny," thought she. Her natural inclination to forbidden practices was too powerful to withstand. Now there was formerly an ancient superstition, that if, on the night before marriage, a taper were burned, made from the fat of a young sow, and anointed with the blood of the inquirer, after sundry diabolical and cabalistical rites at midnight, a spirit would appear, and pronounce the good or evil destiny of the querent. Eleanor had prepared the incantation ere she laid her throbbing head on the pillow. Whether or not she slept, is more than we can divulge. Such, in all probability, was the case; dreams being the echo only of our waking anticipations. She thought there came a rushing wind. The door flapped to and fro, the curtains shook, and the pictures glared horribly from the wall. Suddenly--starting from the panel, with eyes lighted up like bale-fires, and a malignant scowl on her visage--stalked down one of the family portraits. It was that of a female--a maiden aunt of the house of Byron, painted by one of the court artists, whom the king had brought from France, and patronised at a heavy cost. This venerable dame appeared to gaze at the spectator from whatsoever situation she was beholden. The eyes even seemed to follow you when passing across the chamber. A natural consequence though, and only marvelled at by the ignorant and illiterate. This ancient personage now advanced from her hanging-place, and standing at the foot of the bed, opened out a fiery scroll with these ominous words:-- "Maid, wife, and widow, in one day, This shall be thy destiny."