With an air how different from the usual cheerful greetings of the morning at St. Aubyn Castle, did the party now there assemble in the breakfast-room.

The Earl and Countess, wearied with the alarm of the night and the late agitating conversation, scarcely could assume spirits to smile upon their guests and give them that hospitable reception which every one generally felt assured of from them. Lady Juliana, stiff and severe of countenance, scarcely deigned a bow to the salutations of Mr. O'Brien; and the pale melancholy Edmund, who, constraining his feelings, advanced towards Lady St. Aubyn, and attempted an apology for what had passed the evening before, for of his nocturnal wanderings, and her consequent alarm, he had not the least idea: from St. Aubyn he appeared to shrink with less aversion than usual, but when seated at the breakfast-table, his eyes and whole attention seemed fixed on Ellen, who, pale and mournful as were her looks, yet spoke with such gentle sweetness, as appeared instantly to attract him, while the soft and pensive character her beauty had assumed was precisely formed to sooth and tranquillize the too vehement emotions of this deeply feeling young man. Her power, indeed, over the heart, of which all who saw her were sensible, arose from the united charms of voice, person, and demeanor, all of which were so sweetly harmonized with each other as to form one charming and consistent whole, and that, so regulated by the most perfect purity of manners, the most refined delicacy of sentiment, and the most affectionate tenderness of heart, as ensured not only the admiration, but the respect and love of all who knew her; yet more, of all she sought to win or soften. No wonder then if the young and generous heart of Edmund leaned towards her, and felt before the breakfast hour was over that for worlds he could not have pained or wronged her.

Mr. Mordaunt had fixed one o'clock at noon to finish the settlement of all legal concerns between Lord St. Aubyn and Lord De Montfort, the weak state of his health not permitting him to come earlier to the Castle. As soon as breakfast was over, therefore, St. Aubyn invited his guests to walk or ride round the grounds. O'Brien gladly consented, and Laura said she should like to ride with them; but Edmund coldly refused, saying if he went out at all, he should merely stroll by himself a short distance, as he felt languid and unwell. "To you then, my Ellen," said St. Aubyn, "I recommend our noble guest. I need not I am sure request you to pay him every attention; if possible, prevail on him to stay and dine with us: he talks of going the instant his business is completed."

"I hope, my Lord," said Ellen to De Montfort, "you will not do so. The evenings now close in abruptly, and it will be late before you reach the end of the first stage from hence."

He bowed in silence.

The gentlemen and Miss Cecil went to prepare for their ride; and Ellen, ringing the bell, desired Jane to bring her netting-box thither, for she feared if she went as usual to the nursery, Edmund might escape her, and no other opportunity offer for the conference on which her heart was set.

Lady Juliana, as usual, went to her own room, where she always chose to spend two or three hours of her morning alone.

Edmund had, by the time Ellen was seated at her work, thrown himself in a meditating attitude on a sofa, and was apparently lost in a reverie; yet his eyes were frequently fixed on her, and his countenance seemed to soften as he gazed upon her. She soon saw the little party ride into the park, and then feeling herself secure from interruption, she considered how best to begin her intended conversation:—her heart fluttered, and her fingers entangled her work so completely, that it was impossible to proceed with it. Painful, indeed, was her situation; for to converse on topics so deeply interesting with a young man so very lately an entire stranger was indeed a severe task for the gentle, the timid Ellen. Rousing her spirits, however, for she felt that time fled swiftly, she with a tremulous voice said,

"My Lord, I fear you will think I take too great a liberty with one so lately a stranger, if I venture to enter on a subject of the most delicate nature, indeed; but one to me so deeply interesting, I cannot consent to let this opportunity pass, since it may be the last I shall ever have of speaking to your Lordship without witnesses."

From the moment she began to speak, De Montfort started from his reverie, and fixed on her an earnest attention, which had, however, so much softness in it, as emboldened her to proceed in a voice somewhat firmer and more assured.

"You may believe, my Lord," she said, "that Lord St. Aubyn has not withheld from me the real cause of the painful scene I last night witnessed, and a decree of agitation in you, not to be accounted for, but by a recital which out of tenderness he till this morning never ventured to make to me."

"Has he then," said Edmund (in that low, solemn, impressive tone which so deeply interested his hearers) "has he then ventured to reveal to you that horrid event, that deed of blood, the guilt of which he has never been able to throw from him?"

"He has, my Lord, explained to me the meaning of many painful hints; of much uneasiness which I have perceived in him from the first of our acquaintance: but ah! generous, though misled, Lord de Montfort, can you really believe him guilty? Can you doubt the innocence of a man whose life of virtue, whose tender affectionate nature, surely point him out as of all men the least likely to have committed an action so horrid! Surely he cannot have fully and clearly explained to you all the circumstances which preceded this sad event. May I, without too much wounding your feelings, venture to recapitulate what he has told me. Surely a story so clear, so consistent, must at once exonerate him from having had any part in that guilty, that horrid deed."

He bowed assent, and Ellen as succinctly, but as clearly as possible, brought into one point of view, all the circumstances which were favourable to St. Aubyn, yet veiling with the most touching delicacy and consideration those which bore hardest on the fame of Rosolia; affecting to believe that the wretch De Sylva (whom she asserted St. Aubyn and Mrs. Bayfield had certainly seen at her window the night before) had come without her knowledge, and that the same man, meeting her in the lonely hermitage, had committed the shocking deed for the sake of the valuables she wore.

It seemed as if Edmund had chiefly resisted the evidences in St. Aubyn's favour, lest by yielding to them, he must have pronounced his sister guilty: whether this being now less pressed upon him, or that Ellen herself, fully convinced of St. Aubyn's innocence, and perhaps less impassioned than he had been when stating the same story, had placed circumstances more clearly before him, he evidently gave greater credence to the tale than he had ever before done. Her sweetness of voice and manner, and the graceful tenderness with which she spoke of St. Aubyn's virtues; or his honourable and disinterested conduct to her, both before and since their marriage, and of the perfect love which bound them to each other, and wrapt her life in his; tears of tenderness and blushes of indignation marked the varying sensations which filled her bosom at the bare idea of his being suspected of such a crime, and animated her beauty with new graces, appeared to impress him deeply with sentiments of admiration and esteem. When she paused, he sighed and said:—

"Is it in nature to resist such a pleader, or to believe the man so loved by one so pure and spotless, can be himself capable of the blackest crimes? No, Lady St. Aubyn, were your natures so dissimilar it would be impossible that you could so love, so confide in him."

At that instant a soft plaintive voice was heard at the opening door, the voice of an infant. Edmund started, for he had forgotten Lady St. Aubyn had recently become a mother, and a painful recollection pressed on his heart of the infant so dearly loved, so deeply lamented, the child of his idolized Rosolia!

The nurse now appeared with the babe in her arms, for wondering at her Lady's usually lengthened absence from the nursery, she came to request some directions concerning the child: supposing all the gentlemen were gone out together, when she saw Lord de Montfort she would have retreated but Ellen advancing, took the infant in her arms and said:

"Give him to me, nurse; I will but shew him to Lord de Montfort, and bring him to the nursery myself:" then unfolding his mantle, she pressed him to her tender bosom: and when the nurse was gone, with light graceful steps advancing towards Edmund, (who rose from his seat to meet her) she said:

"See here, my Lord, a still more powerful pleader; one pure and spotless indeed, whose opening prospects must be clouded, whose innocent name must be blasted, if you persist in your intentions, if you seek his father's destruction. Look at this babe, and tell me if your gentle nature can doom him to such cruel misfortunes as your denunciation of his father must bring upon his guiltless head."

Edmund, the noble Edmund, stooped, and gazing on the child, was not ashamed to shed tears of tenderness and compassion on his sweet face. The lovely creature opened its eyes, and with the same soft look of confiding innocence which marked his mother's features, stretched out his little hands and smiled.

"Oh! this is too much! indeed too much!" exclaimed De Montfort. "I must not be a man to see this sweet, this lovely infant, and you, angelic woman, and dare to breathe one injurious wish against that man on whom the happiness of both depends! From henceforth I dismiss for ever all my revengeful, perhaps my ill-founded schemes: never shall word or look of mine attempt to injure the happy, the enviable St. Aubyn. Surely Heaven would not have favoured him with felicity so rare, had a deed so cruel as that of which I suspected him stained his soul! I will try to think, to believe so. Assure yourself, at least, loveliest of women, that from me he has nothing more to fear; and may Heaven's choicest blessings be showered on you, and on this sweet, this lovely infant!"

He bent one knee to the ground, and, with reverential awe, kissed Ellen's hand, lifting his expressive eyes towards that Heaven he was invoking in her favour: then rising, he took the babe from her arms, kissed its hands, its cheeks, its lips, and returning it to its mother, with hasty and agitated steps quitted the apartment: leaving her impressed with feelings of joy, gratitude, and the tenderest esteem for this noble, though somewhat eccentric being.

Folding her babe to her fond maternal heart, which seemed to feel even increased affection for it from the late trying scenes, she passed with it to the nursery, where Laura found her a few minutes after, and announced the return of the gentlemen from their ride.

"Where is St. Aubyn?" said Ellen, with a countenance where tears and smiles contended: "I must see him immediately."

"It is near the time appointed by Mr. Mordaunt to conclude Lord de Montfort's business," said Laura, "and I believe he is gone to his study: but what is the matter, Ellen, you look agitated yet joyful? I never saw you more radiant in beauty; something I am sure has happened to light up your face in this manner."

Ellen smiled, and said, "Oh, flatterer! but I cannot stay to tell you now; only I hope I have been fortunate enough to adjust a difference of long standing between Lord de Montfort and St. Aubyn, and I am impatient to tell my Lord the result of my morning's conversation with the former—here, take the babe, Laura, and keep him if you will till I come again, unless Lady Juliana comes, as usual, and snatches him away." She then hastened to St. Aubyn, whom she found alone, and had just time to tell him the result of the conference she had held with Edmund, but not the particulars, before Mr. Mordaunt and the other gentlemen assembled.

As De Montfort entered the study, Lady St. Aubyn was quitting it, but he stopped her one moment, and said in a low voice, "Stay, madam, and witness your power over me." Then advancing, he held out his hand to St. Aubyn, and said to him in Italian, which he knew O'Brien did not understand, "Be all our animosity banished for ever." Yet so strong had been, and perhaps still were his prejudices, that the hand he offered trembled, and he turned pale, when St. Aubyn took it.

"I never felt any, Edmund," said he. "I made large allowances for you, and felt towards you a brother's love: my friendship and best offices are your's at all times."

He then apologized to the gentlemen present for speaking a strange language, and accounted for this little scene, by saying, that an unhappy disagreement which had taken place long ago between himself and Lord de Montfort was now fortunately adjusted.

Ellen just staid long enough to congratulate St. Aubyn in a low voice on this happy termination of an affair which cost him so much uneasiness, and turning to Edmund, she said, "You dine with us, my Lord:" he bowed in silent acquiescence, and she retired, happiest at that moment of the happy.

Lord de Montfort and Mr. O'Brien remained that day at the Castle, and the former, though still at times sunk in reverie, yet was composed; and sometimes almost cheerful. A weight seemed removed from his mind, and though his manner to St. Aubyn was still constrained and distant, there were moments when he appeared with difficulty to prevent himself from appearing friendly and cordial.

Ellen saw, that were they often together, Edmund's long-rooted and cherished prejudices would insensibly wear away; and on that account regretted that he would not be prevailed on to stay longer than till the next morning.

That evening, Laura Cecil, who had been quite pleased to see De Montfort resuming in some degree the manners which in his boyhood made him so agreeable, returned to Rose Hill, where Sir Edward Leicester was soon expected, to whom, it was supposed, she would be married before Christmas.

Lord St. Aubyn willingly consented that Ellen should inform his faithful Bayfield of her knowledge of their transactions in Spain, and the happy reconciliation between her Lord and Lord de Montfort; and Bayfield, who almost idolized Ellen before, now considering her as the cause of an event so desirable, felt her love and veneration redoubled.

In the course of the evening, Lord St. Aubyn hinted to Mr. O'Brien, that some of his family had been disturbed by Lord de Montfort's having left his room while sleeping, and Mr. O'Brien said, that after any great emotion, his pupil sometimes did so, but that it rarely happened, frequently not for months together; in reality, no farther disturbance took place, and the two gentlemen departed the next morning, leaving the inhabitants of the Castle with very different sensations from those they had felt at their first arrival.