woman hastened into the room, "let Dr. Herbert be sent for immediately. You must take care of her. See that she wants nothing." "Gracious God! it is my mistress!" said the woman, as she raised her head upon her knee. You will let her remain in the house, Mr. Saville?-in one of the upper rooms?" "In her own room, Mrs. Martin.-I commit her to you. When she recovers, we can make other arrangements." It is out of the power of fortune or of fate to excite such feelings within me now as pressed upon my heart for some days after this scene. I thank God for it. Human strength or weakness could not again endure so dreadful a conflict of brute passion and of human feeling. That piteous face raised to mine would not depart from me. That she should kneel,—that she should have been degraded abjectly to crouch before me for forgiveness, for pardon, for the vilest pity,and that I should know and feel that the base expiation was the poorest recompense-oh! I cannot pursue this farther. Some days after this,-it was on a Sunday forenoon,-Mrs. Martin entered the room. She took a seat opposite to me. "I am come to speak with you, Mr. Saville," she said. "Well, madam, proceed." "Mrs. Saville, my mistress, sir, is dying." I spoke not for some minutes, although I was not altogether unprepared for a communication of this nature. "You will take the child to her, madam; she will wish to see him.” "Oh, sir, she has seen him every day since she came here, and he is with her now. You will not be offended, sir, if I tell you that she has seen him many times within the last two years. Yes, sir, when you were "Mad, madam!—speak plainly!—I was mad.” "She came, sir, to me, and fell at my feet, imploring to see the child, and I could not refuse her. I could not bear that my mistress should kneel to me, and not be permitted to behold her own son;" and here the woman wept bitterly. "It is very well," said I, after a pause; "I do not blame you. It is better, perhaps, that it should have been so." "Could I prevail upon you, sir?" she continued, wiping her eyes; "might I be so bold as to hope I anticipated the woman's thoughts. "but "She has expressed no wish that I should see her, Mrs. Martin." "She does not mention your name even to me," said she; she must not die without seeing you;-she must not, Mr. Saville." My nature at times was changed from what it had been since I was released from the mad-house. I cast a glance at the woman, which she understood and feared. "Mention not this subject again, madam, and leave me. I would be alone." She was I was disturbed by what the housekeeper had told me. dying. It was well. I wished her to die. I felt that until she was dead, my heart could not be brought to forgive her. I walked out, and bent my steps towards the lodging which Hastings had formerly occupied. I found the woman of the house at home, and, with a calmness which I have since marvelled at, I drew from her all the particulars of their sojourn at her house. They had been living with her about ten months before the death of Hastings, who, she understood, had been entirely deserted by his relations, but why she knew not. About a month previous to the decease of Hastings, he came home one night, saying that he had been waylaid by a ruffian and much injured, and he had never risen from his bed again. I ventured to ask "if Mr. Harris and his wife lived happily together?" The woman shook her head. "There was a strange mystery about them," said she, "which I never could rightly make out. She was ever gentle and obedient; but still there was something unlike a wife, I used to think, whenever she addressed him. And he, sir,-poor man! we should not speak ill of the dead,—but when he came home -from the gaming-house, we often thought-how he used to strike and beat her, telling her to go to her Mr. Saville! He was jealous of you, sir, I suppose, but I am certain without cause; for she was an angel, sir, if ever angel was born upon this earth.—But you are ill, sir. What is the matter?" "Nothing, nothing," said I, rising suddenly; "I am better now;" and pressing my purse upon the woman, I rushed from the house. God of justice! how dreadful is thy vengeance, and how thou ofttimes makest the sinner work out his own punishment! I thought not of the wife at first,-I thought of Isabella Denham. My heart dwelt upon her once more as I had first beheld her at the theatre,—the young, the lovely, the innocent being of former days. I remembered when but to see her for a moment at the window was happiness unspeakable, when even the pressure of her hand in mine was a blessing and a delight to me. And to think that this creature, who had lain in my bosom, who had been tended, watched, almost served, with a degree of love akin to idolatry,-who had never seen one glance of unkindness from me, who had heard no tone from my lips save of affection-too often of foolish weakness;-to think that this creature should have become the slave, the drudge, the spurned and beaten drudge of a brutal miscreant,-the thought was too horrible! I had scarcely entered my own house when Mrs. Martin sought me. "For mercy's sake, sir!" she said in agitation, "come and take your last leave of my mistress. She is dying, and has prayed to see you once more." I followed her in silence. I met Herbert at the door of the room. "I am glad you are come," said he. He was in tears. "I am too weak, Herbert; am I not?" He pressed my hand,-" No, no,”—and he left me. I entered the room and sat down by her side. She spoke not for some minutes. "I wished to see you once more, Mr. Saville," she said at length in a low tone, and without raising her eyes to my face, " to implore, not your pardon, for that I dare not expect; but that you will not curse my memory when I am gone. You would not, Edward,”—and she tremblingly touched my hand as it lay upon the bed,—" if you knew all, or if I could tell you all." I answered something, but I know not what. "I have been guilty," she resumed, "but I did not meditate guilt. Heaven is my witness that I speak the truth. I was betrayed;- and the rest was fear, and frenzy, and despair!" I could conceive that now-I could believe it:-I did believe it,— and I was human. I took both her hands in mine: "Look at me, Isabella! look in my face!" you!" She did so, but with hesitation, and as she did so she started."Nay, we are both altered; but other miseries might have done this. I forgive you from my heart and from my soul. As we first met, so shall we now part. All shall be forgotten,-all is forgiven. God bless Those words had killed her. Her eyes dwelt upon me for one moment with their first sweetness in them;-a sigh,-and earth alone remained! A FRAGMENT OF ROMANCE. WARRANTED GENUINE. [A young lady who rejoices in the appellation of Czarina Amabelle St. Cloud has addressed a lengthened epistle to us, in which she feelingly deplores the gradual decline and downfall of the Minerva Press. She has favoured us with a catalogue of her unpublished works, and a spirit-stirring extract from her last manuscript romance, which is indeed a masterpiece in a department of literature now unhappily but too much neglected. We willingly subjoin both. For a young lady under twenty years of Miss St. Cloud is the most voluminous writer we ever had the pleasure of meeting with.-ED.] age, CATALOGUE OF MISS ST. CLOUD'S UNPUBLISHED WORKS. The Vampyre's Elixir; or, the Undying Wanderer. Basiliska, the Snake-eyed Skeleton of Enniskillen. Frozen Echoes; or, Wraithology: a Shetland story. Venomgorgia, the Arsenic-eater; a pastoral romance. plates. With coloured Boadicea at Jaugarnaut; interspersed with Della Cruscan Poetry. Romanzritter and Nomansreden; a tradition of ancient Norwegia. Extract. "Let the tear of sensibility be wiped for the simple Clotilde, who, fresh as an opening zoöphyte, awoke her aged nurse, Fidgita, to prepare her for the evening masque; and still the unconscious being warbled, "While meekly blends the azure dew, And starry dawn invests the grove, O'er faintest dreams by memory wove; "Gramercy!" quoth the garrulous crone, who had numbered ninety summers; "will my foster babe mock with troubadour odes, and ballads, and the like, one whose every artery hath hardened into a tendon? Hear me, wench, and tremble!" In an unearthly and sepulchral tone, she gutturally muttered the ancient Runic prophecy"Two children, each of spell-bound mother, Shall meet, and one shall love the other; But mother young, and mother old, Each the blessing shall withhold. When by parent's tooth is child's flesh riven, When by child's hand, parent hurl'd from heaven, Then shall the serfs with joy be tipsy, For then shall the robber espouse the gipsy." The mysterious Fidgita disappeared. Clotilde pondered o'er the prediction. She was, indeed, the natural daughter of a wealthy baron, by some beauteous wanderer. The lawless but exemplary idol of her heart had rescued herself and nurse from these Tartar hordes, and restored her to her father, in whose halls she had been received by the Hebrew Duchess Ketura Boaz, and wooed, somewhat against the will of that mature enchantress, by the Danish Lord Wooden Murkenhole, whose cause Fidgita had warmly espoused. Clotilde still stood, clammily clasping her clay-cold hands, as her sportive Grace tripped into the corridor. "Is the Lady Gunterzwartz turned puritan ?" she asked with her wonted wit. "Not at all," was the dignified reply; for the high patrician blood which had descended from the old Romans to our fair papist ill brooked the familiarity of the Israelitish dame. Lady Clotilde," resumed the Duchess Ketura, playing with the handle of the dagger which marked her caste, and which, like other creoles of that region and period, she wore stuck in her plaid bonnet, "I must tell your ladyship "Nothing about that Wooden Murkenhole!" interrupted Clotilde. "Were he a sable pagan Esquimaux bowing to the abominations of Isis, I could not regard him with more repugnance." "Ha!" laughed her Grace of Boaz, " 'tis only when Guzman sails his gondola beneath the spreading cocoa-trees, and strikes his ganjam to the praise of thy charms, that thou art pleased, flirting Tory! Truly, friend Clotilde, I little dreamed, an' please you, when, flying from the invading Normans, I left the luxurious woods of Dover, and the contingent mountains of Cheshire, that I should find thee, my own-no matter! so unlike in taste to thy hapless-hush!" "Oh, Albion!" sighed Clotilde," decidedly thou must be the queen of cities. Thy gallant outlaws and highwaymen will with joy the bride of Guzman greet; for, rather than wive the Rosicrucian Murkenhole, I will throw myself off Mount Damthopovit, or into the monastery of St. Kussanblastre." "My lovely pupil," said Ketura, "had far better accompany me to the munchen-hall, where the kooken vrow is already serving up the duntarags." Clotilde followed her friend. What, then, was her amaze at finding the phorontrom filled with armed men, headed by the rejected and vindictive Wooden! To seize his victim; to place her in the fatal trot-joggeur; to drive across the extensive crags of Smashaltobitz; to consign her to the dungeons of Glumanough,-was the work of a moment. It was not long, however, ere Fidgita apprised the Chevalier Guzman of his lady's peril: that nobleman, we may well imagine, lost no time in attempting to succour. We must now return to the chateau. Between those fated women stood the unforgiving one. "Mothers both!" he uttered, pointing jocosely. "Mother, traitress to your son, we part no more. Mother, rival to your daughter, Jewess or Gingaree, you have lost your Clotilde. Vainly, like your sires, may you wander crying Chloe! Chloe! till she too is old Clo-till-" But we draw the curtain o'er his savage joy. Poison and poignard had been pacific penances to those he dealt the Duchess, ere, with delirious haste, he ascended with his wretched parent in the aerial car. The Lady Ketura, meanwhile, fled to her skiff, which, but for the incantations of the wizard Gorius, she could not have steered, her wrists being yet stiff from the thumb-screws applied to extort her unutterable secret. Thus for weeks did they buffet,-one with ether, the other with the waves,-without touching even earth, much less any more palatable food. Their squalid tatters spread pestilence around, and the rage of hunger gnawed them both. It was now that the volcano began to spout its tragic lines of liquid fire: a furious tempest added shipwreck to the scene. A flaming brand from the irruption lighted on the sail,-the conflagration spread, -a spiral blaze darted on high,-the roar of combustion announced that it had ignited the infernal gas, and the accursed aëronaut was precipitated on the shore. Ketura now remembered how she had loved, and crawled to kiss the dear perfidious Murkenhole. Bats, toads, lemurs, owls, snails, spiders, and other reptilous vermin, slimily beset her loathsome way, gibbering with too intelligible triumph; but, leaning her back against a rock, and firmly placing her foot before, she shouted, "Come one, come all! this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as Ketura!" He of the charmed life had fallen unharmed, and hearing this heroic defiance, rushed to consummate his hellish vengeance. But the Duchess of Boaz anticipated his asking eye. Madly she dashed her |