any-thing like speech returned, and when, at last, she had the satisfaction of hearing a few words uttered by her patient, she found that they proceeded from a mind from which reason had fled. By degrees, however, he regained his bodily functions, and death, for the hour, seemed to leave him to her less tender mercies.

Day after day, and week after week, she watched by him, and nursed him. A low fever and incessant delirium was upon him at first, and she listened to his wandering speech with an interest that she never thought to feel again for any living thing. When he called her "his Gwenthlean," she wept, and pitied him more and more. When he spoke of his home by the sea; of the rocks and mountains-of his aged grandfather her heart was nearly breaking, for his words recalled her own parents.

At last the fever left him, and a slow, very slow and gradual return to consciousness succeeded. After a trance-like state of inaction, which proceeded from pros

tration of bodily strength, the mind was re-awakened, and the wretched certainty of present and future misery dawned upon it. Herbert knew that there was no hope of release, and almost wished that Margarita had let him die. She, however, continued her anxious care. Her pity grew into affection. Revenge was swallowed up in tenderness. It matters not for our tale, whether he replaced Mordaunt in her heart, or whether her feelings for him were simply those of a friend or sister, but she loved him. She again had an object in life. To restore him to his home and friends, and above all to Gwenthlean, was now her aim. She seized upon every available remedy to assist her in restoring him to strength. She gathered herbs and simples from the mountains, the virtues of which she had learnt in childhood, and made him take them. She invented a thousand falsehoods to screen his amendment from the bandits, and still feigned hatred for him. She entreated him to

pretend still to have lost his reason, which he did at least he never spoke at all, and his enemies at last relaxed their vigilance, and left him to himself. Giulio discovered Margarita's change of purpose, but did not betray her. On the contrary, he frequently assisted in procuring restoratives and amusement for the sufferer, and managed to have the chain removed from his wrist. Margarita talked and sung to Herbert, and sought to amuse his mind. She read to him from an old copy of the sonnets of Petrarch, and an old Roman

Catholic missal, which Giulio gave her; she represented to him the possibility of escape -she brought flowers to him from the mountain. What did she not do for him? and for all her love and care, she felt well repaid by a faint smile, or a weakly murmured,

"God bless you."

When she told him her own sad story, Herbert, also, once more found an object in life. To lead this poor stray sheep

back to the ways of peace, was something to live for. Whenever his strength permitted, he talked to her of holy things, and exhorted her to repentance. He repeated to her the truths of the Bible, and told her that they were written for her. He assured her, that her Saviour would open the gates of heaven for her, if she laid down the burden of her heavy revenge at his feet, and forgave her enemy, as He had done his. To soften her heart was not the work of days, but of months. She listened silently to the hollow voice of him, who, from his miserable bed, spoke this new and strange doctrine to her. She rarely spoke at such times, and he knew not whether he made any impression; but he remarked a less vivid fire in her eyes and less determination about the rigid mouth; and, sometimes, when she thought him asleep, he saw her on her knees in prayer. By degrees, her stern nature began to relent, and Herbert saw the tears fall for her own sins, that had hitherto only fallen for

him; and heard her cry for mercy rather than vengeance. He prayed with and for her, and solemny entreated her to solicit the aid of the Holy Spirit, to enable her to bring forth fruit meet for repentance. When she began to acknowledge her errors, she said that she knew no one had ever sinned so deeply, and been forgiven—that Herbert, who was good and innocent, might obtain mercy; but that it was not for such as her. Then he represented to her the errors of his own life-his passionate longing for distinction—and all his dreams of empty ambition. He told her that he had never fully realized the truths of the Gospel until sickness and sorrow had fallen heavily upon him, and he had found that worldly honours were, indeed, but the ignis fatuus of of life, leading through swamps and mists, away from the straight path of religion and quiet happiness. Thus, in efforts, on the part of Margarita, to restore Herbert to health, and in endeavours, on his side, to recover her from