who was exercising his inhumanity over

me.

"When I awoke from my trance, Lord. Rufus was still with me. The sounds with which I opened my lips were the same that I had closed them with-' Where, where is my D'Altonville?'

Acknowledge yourself my destined bride,' returned De Madginecourt, and you shall instantly see him.'

"There are emotions of the heart which, no tongue can express-there are souls which no arguments can move; of the former were my sensations, of the latter class Lord Rufus. I clasped my hands. in agony towards Heaven, and remained. silent."

Rosalind, for the first time, turned her thoughts from the eventful page she was reading." Oh Heaven!" she exclaimed, "in the power of this monster am I at the present moment!-Shield me, Omnipotence, with thy protecting arm; encircle

me

me with thy guardian spirit from the machinations of this fiend!" She paused a while, in comparative reflection on the fate of Eloise and herself. Again she spoke. "Am I destined to be the second victim of his licentious desires? or is the friendship which he now professes towards me real, and exercised as an atonement for his past transgressions? God of mercy, do thou, in pity to my friendless state, soften and ameliorate his rugged heart!"

The shades of evening were already de scending to the earth, and when Rosalind again turned her eyes to the manuscript, desirous of pursuing the narrative it contained, she found that the retiring of the light of day had rendered the characters no longer discernible; and not choosing to carry it with her to her own apartment, she reluctantly replaced it on the same spot where she had found it, and left the library.

- Dame Edith met her in her chamber,

VOL. II.

N

with

with many apologies for her absence during the afternoon.

Rosalind felt disinclined to conversation, and alledging a head-ache as an excuse for retiring early to rest, dismissed the good old dame for the night, and sunk upon her pillow, where reflection on the past, and anticipation of the future, rendered the visit of sleep broken and unrefreshing.

CHAP.

CHAP. XII.

Mighty God!

What had I done to merit such affliction?

HOME.

ANXIOUS for the conclusion of Eloise's fate, Rosalind left her bed at an early hour, and repaired to the library, unob served by dame Edith, who was either still asleep, or occupied with her morning devotions; she opened at the page where she had left off the evening before, and found the narrative continued thus:

"For several days I was kept a prisoner in the cabin, and saw only Lord Rufus, and his equally vile adherent, Ravil; not a single

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a single reply could I gain to my enquiries relative to D'Altonville; and at times I believed that the wretch who aspired to my hand, had freed himself by death from the rival whom he saw me resolute in preferring to himself.

"At length, when Ravil was one day alone with me in the cabin, I thought he appeared more than usually disposed to reply to my questions, and I urged him, in the most imploring terms, to inform me what was the fate of D'Altonville. He told me that he was alive, but not allowed to descend into the cabin to me.

'Whither are we sailing?' I next asked. We must have reached France long ere this, had not the destiny of the vessel been changed.'

'We are sailing towards England,' he replied. Lord Rufus de Madginecourt has a castle on the margin of the shore, where we are to land.'

'Then that castle is destined to be my grave I exclaimed.