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friend, who had for years been brought up in the capital, whom I had seen for an instant when a child, and whom, under that appellation, my friend had locked so tenderly in his parting embrace. She told me that the sudden illness of her father had shocked and agitated her extremely; that her brother had written to her that he was still in life, but that there were no hopes of his recovery; and finding an unexpected opportunity by means of the vehicle which was returning to her native place, she had felt unable to withstand the temptation, or rather the irresistible longing which impelled her, without her brother's knowledge, and contrary, as she feared, to her relations' wishes, to see her beloved father before he died.

"I told her my name, which she recognised at once as that of a friend whom her brother had often mentioned to her, and thus a confiden12 tial footing was established between us, which I hich I took care not to impair by impertinent enquiries. I could not even, while she was under my protection, obtain a single glance of her face. Calmer consideration probably suggested to her, how easily our travelling together might afford room for scandal; so when we crossed the ferry towards the little island, she did not leave the carriage; and when we reached the town at a pretty late - hour, she laid hold of my hand, as I was directing the postilion to go on, and said hastily, 'Let me alight here. This street, near the bridge, leads across the churchyard to our house. I fear to see or to speak to any

one.

my companion's step how much her anxiety was increasing.

"We hurried across the court, and entered the little narrow passage of the house, which was also unlighted. We stood for a moment drawing our breath, and listening. From the farthest chamber on the left we heard a rustling noise, and the sound of whispering voices. A broad streak of light, which streamed from the half-opened door into the passage, was darkened occasionally by the shadows of persons moving within. 'It is my sister's room,' whispered my conductress, and darted towards it. I followed her hastily. But what a sight awaited us!

"The corpse of a young maiden had just been lifted out of bed, and placed on a bier adjoining. A white covering concealed the body even to the chin. Several elderly females were employed in tying up the long dark tresses of the deceased; while others were standing by inactive, or occupied in removing the phials and

medicines from the table.

"My companion had thrown back her veil at entering, and stood as if rooted to the spot. Even the unexpected shock she had encountered, could not banish from her cheek the glow with which anxiety and exercise had tinged it; nay, the fire of her eye seemed to have acquired a deeper and more piercing lustre. So stood she, the blooming representative of the very fulness of life, beside the pallid victim of inexorable Death. The startling contrast agitated me the more, that in those wellknown features I traced, in renovated beauty, those of the enchanting portrait; scarcely master of my senses, I almost believed that I saw again the same maiden who, two hours before, had fascinated me in the Frederick's Hospital, when, all at once, half turning to me, she exclaimed, O, my poor sister Lucia!' ""Lucia!'-the name fell upon me like a stroke of lightning. So, then, she whom I had last seen in the glow of life and beauty, lay before me cold in death! What assurance could I have, that the fair vision which still flitted before me, blooming with health, and life, and grace, was not the mere mask under which some spectre had shrouded itself, or round which the King of Terrors had al

she burst at once into tears. My father even pressed her to mingle in the circle; she continued to refuse; at last she was overheard to say"Well, if you insist upon it on my account, be it so."

""Never before had she danced with such spirit; from that moment

she was never off the floor. She returned home exhausted and unwell, and out of humour. She was now in the fifth month of her pregnancy, and it seemed as if she regretted the apparent levity which her conduct had betrayed.

"Her husband kindly enquired what was the cause of her singular behaviour. "You would not listen to me," she replied, " and now you will laugh at my anxiety; nay, perhaps you will tell me that people ought never to mention before women any thing out of the ordinary course, because they never hear more than half, and always give it a wrong meaning. The truth then is, your conversation some evenings ago made a deep impression on me. The peculiar state of my health had probably increased the anxiety with which for some time past I have been accustomed to think of the future. I fell asleep with the wish that something of my own future fate might be unfolded to me in my dreams. The past, with all the me morable events of my life, nay, even our late dispute as to dancing, were all confusedly mingled in my brain; and, after many vague and unintelligible visions, which I have now forgotten, they gradually arranged themselves into the following dream:

"I thought I was standing in a dancing-room, and was accosted by a young man of prepossessing appearance, who asked me to dance. Methinks, although probably the idea only struck me afterwards, that he resembled the Count, the son of our late host. I accepted his invitation; but having once begun to dance, he would on no account be prevailed on to cease. At last I grew uneasy. I fixed my eyes upon him with anxiety; it seemed to me as if his eyes grew dimmer and dimmer, his cheeks paler and more wasted, his lips shrivelled and skinny, his teeth grinned out, white and ghastly, and at last he stared upon me with bony and eyeless sockets. His

white and festal garments had fallen away. I felt as if encircled by a chain of iron. A skeleton clasped me in its fleshless arms. Round and round he whirled me, though all the other guests had long before disappeared. I implored him to let me go; for I felt I could not extricate myself from his embrace. The figure answered with a hollow tone, 'Give me first thy flowers.' Involuntarily my glance rested on my bosom, in which I had placed a newly-blown rose with several buds, how many I know not. I made a movement to grasp it, but a strange irresistible feeling seemed to flash through my heart, and to draw back my hand. My life seemed at stake; and yet I could not part with the lovely blooming flower, that seemed as it were a portion of my own heart. One by one, though with a feeling of the deepest anguish, I plucked off the buds, and gave them to him with an imploring look, but in vain. He shook his bony head; he would have them all. One little bud only, and the rose itself, remained behind; I was about to give him this last bud, but it clung firmly to the stalk of the rose, and I pulled them both together from my bosom. I shuddered; I could not part with them; he grasped at the flowers, when suddenly I either threw them forcibly behind me, or an invisible hand wrenched them out of mine, I know not which; I sank into his skeleton arms, and awoke at the same instant to the consciousness of life."

"So saying, she burst into tears. My father, though affected by the recital, laboured vainly to allay her anxiety. From that moment, and especially after my birth, her health declined; occasionally only, during her subsequent pregnancies, her strength would partially revi though her dry cough never entirely left her. After giving birth to six daughters, she died in bringing the seventh into the world. I was then about twelve years old. To her last hour she was a lovely woman, with a brilliant complexion, and sparkling eyes. Shortly afterwards I was sent to school, only visiting my father's house and my sisters during the holydays. All of them, as they grew up, more or less resembled their mother; till they attained their thir

teenth

enth or fourteenth year they were pale, thin, and more than usually tall; from that moment they seemed suddenly to expand into loveliness; though scarcely had they attained their sixteenth year, when the unnatural brilliancy of their cheeks, and the almost supernatural lustre of their eyes, began to betray the internal hectic fire which was secretly wasting the strength of youth.

""Seldom at home, I had little idea of the evil which hung over our home. I had seen my eldest sister in her beauty, and her wane; and then I heard of her death. I was at the university when the second died. Shortly afterwards I visited my home. I found my third sister in the full bloom of youthful loveliness. I had been dabbling a little in painting, and felt anxious to attempt her portrait, but I had made no great progress when the time for my de parture arrived. I was long absent; when I next returned, it was on the occasion of her death. I was now no longer a heedless boy. I saw the melancholy of my father, and ascribed it to the shock of so many successive deaths. He was silent; he left me in my happy ignorance, though even then the death stillness and loneliness of the house weighed with an undefinable oppression on my heart. My sister Regina seemed to grow up even more lovely than her deceased sisters. I now found the sketch which I had begun so like her, that I resolved to make her sit to me in secret, that I might finish the picture, and surprise my father with it before my departure. It was but half finished, however, when the period of my return to the capital arrived. I thought I would endeavour to finish it from memory, but, strangely enough, I always confused myself with the recollection of my dead sisters, whose features seemed to float before my eyes. In spite of all my efforts, the portrait would not become that of Regina. I recollected having heard my father say, that she of all the rest bore the greatest resemblance to her mother; o I took out a little picture of her, which she had left to me, and endeavoured with this assistance, and what my fancy could supply, to finish the picture. At last it was finished, and appeared to possess a strange resemblance to all my sisters, without being an exact portrait of any.

""As I had intendedit, however, for the portrait of Regina in particular, I determined to take it with me on my next visit, and endeavour to correct its defects by a comparison with the original. I came, but the summer of her beauty was already past. When I drew out the picture to compare it with her features, I was shocked at the change which had taken place in her, though it had not yet manifested itself in symptoms of disease. As I was packing up my drawing materials again, under some pretext or other my father unexpectedly entered. He gave a glance at the picture, seemed deeply agitated, and then exclaimed-" Let it alone."

""That evening, however, as, according to our old custom, we were sitting together in his study, after my sisters had gone to rest, our hearts reciprocally opened to each other.

"I now for the first time obtained a glimpse into my father's wounded heart. He related to me that dream as you have now heard it; and his firm conviction that almost all his children, one by one, would be taken from him; a conviction against which he had struggled, till fatal experience had begun too clearly to realize it. I now learned that he had brought up his daughters in this strict and almost monastic seclusion, that no taste for the world or its pleasures might be awakened in the minds of those who were doomed to quit it so soon. They mingled in no gay assemblies, scarcely in a social party; and even I, my friend, have since that time never thought of dancing without ashudder. Conceive what an impression this conversation, and that fearful prophetic dream, made upon my mind! That I and my youngest sister seemed excepted from the doom of the rest, I could not pay much attention to; for was not my mother, at my birth, suffering under that disease which she had bequeathed to her children; and how, then, was it likely that I should be an exception? My imagination was active enough to extend the sentence of death to us all. The interpretation which my father attempted to give to the dream, so as to preserve us to himself, might be but a delusive suggestion of paternal affection; perhaps, self-deluded, he had forgotten, or given another turn to the conclusion of the dream, A deep and wild