"Why this is better and better, Annie; do not blush so prettily about it," whispered Lord St. Clair, as, attention once aroused, the similarity was universally acknowledged. "If the resemblance be chance, it is something to marvel at; if intentional, why I shall be jealous of the sculptor."

"You need not, Henry," was the reply, in a tone so sad that it pained him.

"Well, well, we will go and see it at least, love, and judge of its merit with our own eyes." The next day accordingly they went, and (the most convincing proof of the perfection of the work) were not disappointed. Neither its beauty nor its eloquence had been exaggerated, and the resemblance to Annie was so extraordinary that the eyes of all the spectators within the room were attracted towards her; but the expression on the countenance of the father in | the group riveted her attention far more than the female figure. It was with a heavy sigh she turned from it, and was pale and silent during their way home; but St. Clair was so engrossed | by the beauty of the work, the strange resemblance, and his resolution to leave no stone unturned to gain the acquaintance of the young artist, that it passed unnoticed even by him.

"Why, what ails you, Annie? are you not well, dear?" kindly inquired Lady Emily, some hours later. Wondering why her young companion did not join her as usual, she had sought her in her own room, and found her with her face buried in her hands, and her whole attitude denoting suffering. "Henry has gone to seek out this Signor Castellan, to find out, if he can, in what this strange similarity originated, and who and what he is."

"Shall I tell you?" answered Annie, in a tone so strange that it started almost as much as the whiteness of her face." Reginald Castellan de Vere! Was not his mother's name Castellan? and has he not often and often boasted his descent from Spanish heroes, and from this feeling fought for Spain in preference to any other country? Did he not always love the art of sculpture? Can it be chance that has marked the father and daughter of that group with the characteristics of the revered friend and favourite companion of his youth? No, no, no! Oh! Lady Emily, you bade me once thank God that I had never been deceived; teach me how to bear this."

"Bear what, my poor child?" replied her companion, soothingly, as Annie threw herself on her neck in fearful agitation. "If this be indeed as you say, what can there be but happiness for you? It is for another we must feel." "Happiness for me! and he has never even so far thought of me as to tell me the report of his death was false, and he still lived-never recalled himself to one whom, when he departed, he so loved-loved! how know I that? he never said it; why should I believe him different to others?"

"My dearest Annie, this is not like yourself.

work of his hand, a work which must have employed his mind and heart long days and nights, bear the impress of your face and form ?"

"Memory, association, mere casualty-the days of his boyhood may be dear to his mind; but how can affection, even a brother's, have inspired that group, when-when he has allowed me so long to believe him dead?"

"It is all a mystery, my dear child; but I feel convinced it will be solved, if we can really prove his identity. May he not have written, and the letter miscarried? (Annie wildly raised her head.) May he not have been deceived? perhaps-for we can never trace rumours-but may he not have heard that of you which, to a mind like his, would cause him to shrink from recalling himself? He left you such a child, how might he build on having so won your regard that you would remain single for his sake? Dearest Annie, if this indeed be not all imagination, and Reginald really lives, trust me you will be happy yet."

How will a few judicious words change the whole current of thought and feeling! Before Lady Emily ceased to speak, Annie was weep. ing such blessed tears. The proud, cold mood which, had her companion spoken as her own experience of man's nature must have dictated, might have been retained, and made her miserable for life, dissolved before returning trust and hope. She dared not define what it was she hoped; but it was not till she heard Lord St. Clair's voice, and she tried to spring forwards to meet him and know the truth, that a sudden revulsion of feeling so completely overpowered her that she sunk back upon the couch. How dared she rejoice, even if Reginald lived? what could he be to her who was the promised bride of another?

Emily!" exclaimed Lord St. Clair, in utter astonishment, as, on his entering the drawingroom, his cold and dignified sister hastily met him, and taking both his hands, tried to speak, but failed; and leaning her head against him, he felt that she was in tears. "What is the matter, love? something very dreadful, for you to weep."

She controlled herself with a strong effort, and entered at once into the recital of the scene between her and Annie. "Could it possibly be as she supposed?"

It may be," was the reply, in a calm, firm tone; "there is nothing impossible in it. I went to his lodgings, but, as I supposed, he was either out or too much engaged to be seen; but I am to meet him to-night at the Contessa Corsini's, and this strange mystery will be unravelled."

"And you, dear Henry-" she could say no more, so holy seemed his feelings.

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And I, my dear sister, will act as that man should, whose aim is not the gratification of his own desires, but the happiness of one far dearer than himself. I do not tell you I shall not feel, and deeply; but does the warrior shrink from the battle before him because he may be

wounded? You may love me more," my Emily, if you will," he continued, fondly passing his arm round her, and kissing her cheek, 'for affection is always balm; but I will have no tears they are only for the unworthy. Where is Annie? poor child, she must be overwrought, from many causes; let me see her, she will be calmer then."

He was right. What passed between them it needs not to relate. Our readers can little enter into the high character of Lord St. Clair if they cannot satisfy themselves as to the manner, as well as the nature and extent, of the sacrifice he made. He was not one to wring the gentle heart he so unselfishly resigned, by the betrayal of personal suffering; he covetted the continuance, nay, the increase of her regard, and nobly he earned it.

It was a brilliant scene on which, a few hours later, he entered, introduced by the same Italian, Signor Lanzi, who had been the first to trace the resemblance between Annie and the female figure of the group. But neither loveliness nor talent, both of which thronged the halls, had at that moment attraction for Lord St. Clair; his glance had singled out a tall, slight form, leaning against a marble pillar, and half-shaded by the drapery of a curtain. His head was bent down: he seemed in the act of listening and replying to the smiling jests of the Countess, who was sitting near him; the cheek and brow were very pale, and the mouth, when still, somewhat stern in expression; but it was a fine face, bearing the stamp of genius too visibly ever to be passed unremarked.

"You may smile, and look incredulous, Signor," were the words that first met the ears of the English nobleman, from the young Contessa, in Italy's sweetest tone; "but since you deserted us for Bologna, a living likeness has appeared of your beautiful Amélie."

"Mademoiselle de Sombreuil herself, perhaps," he replied, half-smiling. "Fancy would indeed have served me well, had such a chance occurred."

"You are quite wrong. I doubt whether Mademoiselle de Sombreuil would herself resemble your fancy statue, as much as la bella Inglese does."

"La bella Inglese! who may she be?" inquired the young sculptor, somewhat agitated.

"Was not your lordship aware of my existence, insignificant as it is, more than a twelvemonth since? My own hand and signature were surely sufficient guarantee," he answered, in a cold proud tone.

"Then you did write, and Annie was not deceived! Little did I know the precious intelligence contained in the packet, lost on its way to me in Russia, and the want of which, in a political view, caused me such annoyance! But why wait so long, my dear fellow, to give us tidings so many would have rejoiced to hear ?"

So many! There were more, then, to mourn me dead, than to love me living? But forgive me," he continued, less bitterly; "your family would have been my friends, and therefore was it I wrote to tell you that I lived."

"But was there not one, Reginald, who deserved an earlier notice at your hands? why leave her so long to mourn you as dead, and then to learn such joyful tidings from others than yourself? The ties of early youth, of fond associations, I should have thought sufficient of themselves alone to prevent such wrong."

Reginald's very lip grew white as he replied-" Was not her husband the fittest person to give Lady St. Clair such tidings?"

"Her husband, Reginald! You speak enigmas?"

"How!" gasped the young man, as he laid his cold and trembling hand on his companion's arm. "Is not Annie Grey your wife?"

"No!" replied Lord St. Clair, the peculiar expression clouding his noble countenance for the moment passing unnoticed; "her heart was with the dead!"

Reginald de Vere struggled with bursting emotion, but his trembling limbs refused to support him; and sinking powerlessly on a sofa, he covered his face with his hands, and wept such tears as only spring from manhood's un

*

It still wanted an hour to midnight, and Lady Emily was in vain endeavouring to prevail on Annie to retire to rest.

"You are feverish and worn out already, Annie. How will you be able to support the excitement of to-morrow without rest to-night?"

"It would be no rest if I lie down: I cannot sleep; only let me know he lives!" and she twined her arms round Lady Emily's neck, and looked so appealingly, so mournfully, no heart could have urged more.

There was a pause of several minutes, and then Annie started up

"It is Henry's step!" she exclaimed, and would have sprung forward, but her feet felt rooted to the ground; another moment Lord St. Clair was at her side.

"Promise me to bear the shock of joy better than you did the shock of grief, or I can tell you nothing," he said, gently; but there was no need for another word. Faint, as she was, every object in the room seeming to swim before her eyes, every word to be indistinct, yet one figure was visible, one voice calling her his own, own Annie! beseeching her to forgive and bless him reached her heart, and loosed its icy chains, till she could breathe again. She felt not that strength had entirely deserted her, for she was clasped to the heart of Reginald de Vere, and the deadly faintness passed in the gushing tears that fell upon his bosom.

Mysterious as was Reginald de Vere's silence, its causes may be summed up in a few words. To his own generous deed, recorded in the early part of our tale, he owed the preservation of his life. When bleeding and exhausted he was led a prisoner to the Carlist camp, he was instantly recognized by the poor woman whose child he had saved, and whom he had sent on to her husband. The tale of his kindness, his generosity, his bravery, had been repeated again and again by the happy wife, and created amongst the common soldiery a complete sensation in his favour; so that very many were found eager and willing to aid Juan Pacheco in his resolution to return the good conferred, and save his wife's benefactor at the hazard of his own life. He had already been disgusted with his life in the camp; the beauty of his young wife had exposed him and her to insults which, as he had no power to retaliate, urged him to seize the first opportunity to desert. One by one the prisoners had been led to execution, and one by one had fallen. Reginald, unable to support himself from wounds and exhaustion, though quite conscious he was placed there to die, was loosely bound to a post, as a better mark to the soldiers who fronted him. They fired-the girthings which bound him gave way, and a dead faint succeeded; but they had fired with harmless weapons, and when Reginald awoke from what he fancied death, he found himself in a covered cart, carefully watched and tended by the young mother and her boy, whom he recognized at once; his captain's uniform placed on the body of a young Spaniard, who had fallen in battle, and whose features were not unlike those of De Vere, no doubt caused Edward Kenrich's belief in his being really Reginald, and his having been in consequence honourably interred. Juan Pacheco's knowledge of the wilds and intricate windings of his native country enabled him ably to elude the pursuit to which, as a deserter, he was liable; but De Vere suffered so dreadfully from alternate fever and exhaustion during the journey, that many times his kind preservers feared their care would be in vain, and death would release

him ere earthly rest and shelter were obtained. But at length the goal was gained-a small cottage belonging to a monastery of Saint Iago, situated in so retired a pass of the Pyrenées that none but mountaineers knew of its existence. Under the skilful medical aid of one of the fathers Reginald slowly regained health; but it was not till nearly a year after his supposed death that he regained the elasticity and entire use of his limbs such as he had previously enjoyed. The severeity of monastic discipline did not characterize the monks of Saint lago. They were but few in number; old and respectable men, who had turned from the distracting turmoils of their unhappy country, and sought peace in study and deeds of kindness. In one of these aged men Reginald discovered an uncle of his mother's-one who had always mourned her departure to another land, and union with a heretic, but who had loved her to the end, and was willing to receive with affection any of her children. The fearful sufferings and deep melancholy of the young Englishman had attracted him, even before the picture of his mother, which Reginald constantly wore, discovered the relationship between them. For nearly two years De Vere remained in this soli. tude; the fear of drawing down ruin and misery on his preservers prevented his writing to his commanding officer, to state his escape-Padré Felipo alleging the state of the country was such that his letter might not only be seized, and himself retaken, but Pacheco exposed to the danger of execution as a deserter and abettor of his escape. After the first year he made many attempts to communicate with his friends in England-Annie Grey amongst the number; but he never heard in return, and therefore concluded, and with justice, that his letters had never reached a post.

But the two years of solitude, instead of being a mental blank, was the hinge of circumstances on which his whole after career turned. To amuse his confinement, and please the children, he resumed the favourite amusement of his boyhood, carving in wood and stone, and with such success as to astonish himself. He found an admirer and instructor where he little expected it, in one of the monks; and under his guidance, and emboldened by encouragement, made such rapid progress that his whole soul became wrapt in the desire to visit Italy, and study there. His pantings for fame were now defined-a flash of light seemed to have irradiated his whole being, and to burst the chains of destiny, which still cramped energy and life. It was the consciousness of genius, the proud conviction that he might indeed win the object of his love; win, and be worthy of her, and give her a name proud as those of the men of genius whose lives they had read and venerated together.

The days when all the fortunes of the monks were devoted to their abbeys, or to a patron saint, were over, and Padré Felipo rejoiced at possessing the means effectually to aid his young relative. He settled on him a sum more

than sufficient to gratify all his desires, and Reginald hesitated no longer to concentrate all his energies on this one pursuit. He went to Italy, adopting the name of his benefactor, which was also that of his mother; and the wish not to be known in England until he had perfected himself in his art, caused him to retain it even when no danger was attached to the acknowledgment of his existence.

But once in Italy, the yearning to hear of his family and friends became intense, while a strange feeling of dread withheld him from again addressing Annie. It was two years and a-half since they had parted, two since he had been reported dead. What might not have occurred in that interval? He had left her free, and so child-like, so simple in character, that how could he, how dared he indulge the hope that she had so returned his love as to remain single for his sake? He had never spoken of love to her; his affection was so pure and true, that it had withheld him from linking, by a too impetuous avowal, her fate with one so gloomy as his own. His genius seemed now to promise a fairer destiny, but his heart, still darkened by the fearful creed of fatalism, believed that this very promise would be dashed with gloom, and from the ascendancy of this unhappy feeling, failing in courage to address Annie herself, he wrote to one of his sisters, beseeching a speedy reply, with information of his father, and all she could learn of Miss Grey. The reply was many weeks before it came, pleading the usual excuse for unjustifiable silence-stress of occupation, and dislike to letter-writing. Basil de Vere was in America, and Miss Grey on the eve of marriage with Lord St. Clair; the whole London world was full of it, on account of the disparity of years between the parties, and because Lord St. Clair had never seemed a marrying man; but that it was a settled affair there was not the smallest doubt. She wrote as if it could concern Reginald but little; but the pang was such as to confirm his fearful creed of an inexorable fate, and plunge him into a despondency, that genius itself seemed unable to remove. At first he worked at his art mechanically, but gradually his mind became aroused, and he tried to forget the heart's anguish in such persevering labour, that, though to mere observers its effects were marvellous in so speedy a perfection, it was, in fact, but the natural consequence of unceasing mental and manucipal work. He constantly reproached himself for the agony he felt: what right had he to suppose he had had any hold upon her? Why could he not rejoice in her happy prospects, and write to tell her so? But weeks merged into months ere he could do this, and then he could not address herself, but wrote to Lord St. Clair, revealing his escape, his concealment, and finally the promised success of his art, with a calm, affectionate message to Annie. The letter cost him a bitter struggle, and with feverish restlessness he awaited the reply; but when none came, bitter thoughts possessed him. He believed himself entirely forgotten and uncared for by his friends; and

every energy crampt (save for his art) by his spiritless belief, he determined to remain so, and shun alike England and her sons. It was his fate, he inwardly declared, and he must bend to it; and thus, as is ever the case with these dark dreamers, he created for himself the lonely doom he imagined his destiny marked out. The death of his aged relative in the monastery of St. Iago placed a moderate fortune at his disposal, and enabled him still more successfully and earnestly to pursue his art. For a time the excitement attendant on the creation of his group roused him from himself, but the reaction was plunging him still deeper into the dark abyss of misanthropy and gloom, when his discovery, through his own beautiful work, the sudden and almost overwhelming happiness bursting through the darkness of his spirit, in the consciousness that Annie was free, that she had ever loved him, completely changed the current of his thoughts, and permitted him a realization of joy, before which the dark creed of destiny fled for ever.

It is in a cheerful sitting-room of a pictu resque dwelling on the banks of Keswick Lake, that our readers may once more look on Annie Grey ere they bid her farewell-Annie Grey, indeed, she was not; but there was little change visible, save that her fair cheek bore the rose, and her beautiful form the roundness of more perfect health than when we last beheld her. The large French windows opened on a small, but beautiful garden, where the taste of England and Italy were so combined, as to render its flowers and statues the admiration of every be holder. The opposite window opened on a conservatory of beautiful exotics, and exquisite specimens of painting and sculpture adorned the room itself. An uncovered harp filled one corner, on which the evening sun, shining full from the stained glass of the western window, flung tints as bright and changing as those of the kaleidoscope. A hortus siccus, opened on a group half arranged, was on a table, at which Lady Emily St. Clair was seated, and Annie was standing at her side with a volume of poems in her hand.

"You idle girl! you would have found what I wanted in five minutes a few years ago. What are you thinking about? Ah, Reginald, you are just in time, or Annie's restlessness would have invaded your sanctum, depend upon it."

"And had I not cause? A whole hour, nearly, too, after your promised time! and your cheek pale, and your brow burning! Dearest, do not let your art be dearer than your wife!"

"What! jealous of all my marble figures, love? For shame!" replied her husband, playfully, twining his arm round her, and kissing her cheek; "but I will plead guilty to fatigue tonight, and you shall cure me by my favourite song."

Annie flew to her harp, and De Vere, flinging himself on an easy chair, drank in the sounds with an intensity of delight which he never believed that song could have had the power to produce. "Yes!" he exclaimed, as her sweet voice ceased, "what are palaces and their plea

sures, compared to an hour like this? There is, indeed, no place like home:' what, oh what would the artist and the student be without it?"

"Why, how is this, Signor Rinaldo? what extraordinary spell has been flung over you, so change your opinion of a song that once you would not even hear?" laughingly exclaimed Lord St. Clair, springing from the balcony into the room. 66 Good evening Mrs. de Vere; I have some inclination to arrest you for using unlawful witchcraft on this gentleman, even as I once thought of seizing him, for allowing you to die of grief for his loss, when he was all the time in life!"

"Guilty! guilty! we both plead guilty," replied Reginald in the same tone; "but my guilt is of far deeper die: my Annie's witchery has but thrown such a halo over my home, that all which speaks of its charm is as sweet to my ear as to my heart. I am changed, St. Clair, and not merely in loving a song once despised," he added, with much feeling, "but in being enabled to trace a hand of love, where once I beheld but remorseless fate: and my wife has done this, so gently, so silently, that I guessed not her influence until I found myself joining her own lowly prayers, and believing in the same sustaining faith."

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And has she explained its mystery?" inquired Lady Emily, with earnest interest.

"No, dear friend; nor do I need it, now. The belief that a God of infinite love and compassion ordains all things, yet leaves us the perfect exercise of our free will, and in that freedom, and the acts thence ensuing, works out his divine decrees, constraining no man, yet bringing our most adverse wills to work out his heavenly rule -this is a belief that must be felt, it cannot be explained, and thrice blessed are they on whom its unspeakable comfort is bestowed!"

SONG.

BY G. LINN.EUS BANKS.

(Author of "Occasional Rambles," &c.)

Ah! when again, with willing feet,
Shall we revisit former scenes-
Where high the cedar branches meet,

Or where the cottage jasmine leans? Oh! when, while summer's golden skies Illume the earth with smiles divine, Shall I behold those gentle eyes,

And listen to that voice of thine?

The tide of memory, warm and strong,
Still flows in torrents to the last;
And every wave that sweeps along

Bears some fond idol like the past.
My spirit in the future dwells,

Now present hopes are round me thrown; Alas! they are but Passion's spells

I wake to find myself alone!