Ferdinand had just left with his sister, a few hasty lines which had preceded Louis from Morewick, when the writer himself entered, like Maia's son breathing hope and happiness, into the room where the Marchioness was preparing breakfast.

"Whatever your secret may be, it is a pleasant one!" cried she, "your countenance is a brilliant herald."

That of Marcella's (as she was dismissing her maids from the adjoining apartment where she had just finished dressing) was blanched, pale as the trembling hand which closed upon the unread letter.

"Oh," sighed she, to herself; "would to God, that I had never left Spain—or never seen this land!" What were Louis's answers to her mother, or her brother (who both spoke at once) she did not hear. The pulses of her head beat almost audibly, and seemed to exclude all other sounds from reaching her ears. She was separated from the room by a slight door only, which, standing ajar, discovered his figure to her as it animatedly moved to and fro, as with similar energy, but in a lowered voice, he imparted his secret to her mother and brother.

Ferdinand came in; and finding her thrown back into her chair, he gently touched her arm; and entreating her to allow him to lead her into the breakfast room; added, if she still felt too fatigued to be anxious to pursue her journey; he was sure she would think otherwise, presently; for de Montemar was come back, and had much to tell her!

"He has told you, and my mother;" said she, "and that is enough. I shall soon have no interests in this world!" but the last, was only murmured to herself. However she rose; and leaning on her brother, walked steadily and serenely into the next room.

Louis stood opposite to the door at which she entered.

"Were I a Catholic, sweet saint!" said he, inwardly; " how would I worship thee!" and his head bent with the sentiment, upon his breast.

She bowed calmly to him.

"My child," said the Marchioness, "we are to pass this day at Morewick; where you will meet Mr. Athelstone, and Miss Coningsby."

"And am I to witness their nuptials?" cried Marcella to herself; "but even that I will endure!" And forcing a smile, which gleamed like a moon-beam on a flowery grave, she answered,—"Just where you please, madam." And took her seat.

The Marchioness turned from her to Louis; and observing the deep and penetrating tenderness with which he regarded her; she drew near her son, and while a tear started in her eye, whispered him. "Surely your father may consider of his daughter's happiness too long; and withhold the dove of promise, till there be no resting place for its foot."

Ferdinand saw his mother was affected; and making an excuse to attend her, to consult with Don Garcia respecting their proceeding, he took her from the room.

Marcella was now left alone with Louis. She sat like a cold statue. His joyous heart was overclouded at once; and with a slow step he approached her. Her eyes were cast down, and fixed on her clasped hands, in which she still held the letter. At that moment all his love, and all the agonies of her displeasure, were apparent in his countenance. She looked up; and received its full import direct upon her heart. The confusion in her's, the gasp with which she recalled her eyes, and covered them with her hand, proclaimed her whole secret to Louis; and wrested from him all his own; but not a word could find utterance on either side. He was at her feet on his knees, and with the hem of her garment pressed to his lips.

But how different was the sentiment which then rendered him speechless, from the tumultuous emotion which arrested him in the same position before Countess Altheim! There his spirit was divided against itself. His reason doubted the admiration of his senses; and a racking indecision checked his wishes and his lips. Here his whole soul consented to the perfect love, with which the virtues of Marcella had possessed his heart. The passion that she inspired was like herself; a sacred flame, and lit for immortality: and Louis avowed its imperishable nature to himself, even while he struggled for words, to foreswear it at the feet of the future nun for ever.

Marcella's faculties, so lately possessed with the idea of his devotion to Cornelia, were all amazement. Surprised out of herself, by the look she had momentarily seen; and immediately feeling him at her feet; she became so overwhelmed by her own consciousness, and his irrepressible emotions, that she shook, almost to the parting of soul and body.

"Pardon me, lady Marcella!" cried he, "pardon my first and my last disclosure of a sentiment, which as it has no hope, I trust, has no sacrilege! But to love all that is pure and noble in idea; and not to love its living image was impossible to me. You confirmed me in the virtue I might have deserted! You consoled me when the world had abandoned me! You have even now, exerted yourself beyond your strength, in compassion to a desperate haste for which I durst not assign a cause. This last goodness leaves me no longer master of myself. It has precipitated me to the avowal of a sentiment, which in my breast, shall never know a second object. The hour that consigns you to a cloister, seals my heart for ever."

This was spoken with agitated rapidity; but no answer was returned. Marcella felt her own tenderness for him was no longer a secret to him:—She had betrayed it herself! and her horror at this conviction, overwhelmed all other considerations. She attempted to rise, he did not venture to withold her.

"Have I offended you, Lady Marcella," cried he, "past all pardon?"

She had arrived at the door of the inner room, when he repeated the demand, with an anguish of expression she could not mistake. Turning round, she faulteringly replied.—

"I have offended, past all hope of my own pardon!"

Louis was springing forward. She saw the movement, though with still down-cast eyes; and putting out her hand, with an air of vestal reserve, decisively, but gently pronounced,—

"No more." And disappeared into the room.

The emotions in his breast were inexplicable to himself. He was awe-struck, by her manner. His sentence of perpetual silence was in those words!—And yet the flood of happiness which burst over his whole heart, at the conviction her first moments of confusion inspired, would not be driven back.

He was standing in this agitated state, when the Marchioness entered, followed by Ferdinand and Don Garcia. On perceiving that Marcella was not in the room, she expressed some alarm at her disappearance; and accompanied by the physician, hastened to seek her in the adjoining apartment.

Ferdinand glanced in the kindling face of his friend, and conjectured better than his mother. He drew near him. "De Montemar," said he, in a lowered voice, "shall I guess your meditations?"

"No, Ferdinand, I would not extend my offence; and yet you have read me ill, if I have been able to hide it from you!"

"And who have you offended, my brother?" asked Ferdinand, drawing close to him, and in a tone so peculiar, that Louis's bounding heart beat against the side of his friend as he rapidly answered,

"Say not that word again, or you will undo me!"

"De Montemar," returned Ferdinand, "hope, as I have done, against possibilities!"

Louis's eyes demanded what he meant.

Ferdinand continued; "I dare not say more: my father's return will tell you the rest!"

"Your brother?" repeated Louis.

"My brother!" answered Ferdinand, and strained him to his breast.

Louis was now in air, in the dawning light of paradise; nor were the interchanges produced by suspense, more than passing shadows, to the luminous hope that shone upon his soul.

He and Ferdinand took horse for the short ride to Morewick; and during their drive the Marchioness communicated to her daughter, all that Louis had confided to her, respecting the cause of his late eagerness to return thither. As Marcella listened to the history of his friendship for Duke Wharton; its trials, its sufferings; and now its triumph, in the reformation of his friend from all his errors, and final restoration as from the grave; her tears bore too true a witness to the interest with which she hearkened to every circumstance that related to him. She hardly allowed herself to breathe, during that part of the narrative where her mother particularly enlarged on Cornelia's cares of the Duke; and repeated the observation of Louis, that such cares seemed his friend's best sanative; for that he believed, if any two persons were fitted by Providence for each other, it was the nobly eccentric mind of Wharton, to the celestial harmony of his cousin's.

"She is my ruling planet, that I have found at last," said the Duke to his friend, "and her attraction will keep me in its orbit."

Marcella was too confounded by the last scene between her and Louis, to confess a word of what had passed; she had been even more ashamed to communicate her apprehensions to her anxious parent, concerning this boasted cousin of the Marquis de Montemar. Therefore she now looked down, believing the fulness of her secret yet unknown to all but to its object, and gladly would she have died, rather than be conscious to the degradation of that hour.

She knew that her father had obtained from the Pope, a dispensation from his vow, relative to immuring her in a convent; and she did not doubt that Louis had been told the same in their first meeting at Harwich.

Though she had pined in thought, from the hour of her losing sight of him; and felt how hard it was to do, what she most inconsistently wished to accomplish, to make monastic vows, when her heart lingered after an earthly image!—yet, though the canker preyed inwardly, she knew not the extent of her love, till she found its fangs of jealousy, when she first heard him speak of Cornelia being at Morewick, and that he must hasten to rejoin her. His conduct during their last day's journey to Alnwick, filled her with all the tortures of passion; for not until then, had she known, by the reverse and the disappointment, the incipient hope which had lurked at the bottom of her heart,—that she was not indifferent to him!

Louis in the last interview at the inn in Alnwick, had avowed something of this sentiment, but the circumstances overwhelmed her; and wishing to forget the whole for ever, she did not even make a remark to her mother on what she imparted.

Louis and Ferdinand having preceded the carriage half an hour, they stood with Mr. Athelstone under the porch of the hall, to receive the travellers.

Marcella's eye instantly fell on the silver-headed Pastor of Lindisfarne. He seemed to stand, like the benignant saint of Patmos, venerable in years, and reverend in the spirit of holiness. He saluted the cheek of the animated Marchioness; but when he put out his hand to support the advancing steps of Marcella, her knees obeyed the impulse of her heart, and she bent before him, kissing his sacred hand.

"Bless you! bless you, my child!" said he, laying his other hand upon her head. Louis's ready heart could not bear the sight of such a recognition, without a sensibility he feared to shew; and he vanished into the recesses of the hall. The Pastor raised her in his arms, and bearing her gently into a room, put her into those of Cornelia, who had just embraced the Marchioness.

Cornelia dared hardly venture to clasp the beautiful phantom to her bosom; but tenderly supported her tremulous frame to a sofa, where she gently seated her; and, pressing her soft hand in her's, gazed at her through her crowding tears. Was this fragile being, just hanging like a broken lilly, between the next breeze and the cold earth; was it she who had stood the fearful thunders of Ceuta? who had raised her head amidst the storm of war, to staunch the bleeding wounds of Louis de Montemar? to cherish his life at the expence of her own?

"It was!" cried the full heart of Cornelia to herself; and, in inarticulate, but ardent, language, she uttered her welcome.

The kindness of her voice drew the last sting of jealousy from the bosom of Marcella. She looked up, and thanked her with her eyes. There was something which passed from them, so powerful to the heart of Cornelia, that she gave way to the impulse of the impression; and, clasping the interesting Spaniard to her bosom, imprinted on her cheek a sister's kiss. That glance of Cornelia's noble countenance had struck Marcella with its general resemblance to that of her cousin; and she seemed to feel a pledge of something more than the welcome of a stranger, in this repeated embrace of Louis's most beloved relative.

The Marchioness was soon at home with the benign Pastor of Lindisfarne; and both she and Ferdinand were inquiring of him various particulars respecting their suit with Alice and Mrs. Coningsby, when Louis entered the room, after having introduced Don Garcia to the Duke.

Cornelia stretched out her hand to him. "Louis," said she, "you must make an interest for me, in the heart of Lady Marcella before she sees Alice, whom she will doubly love, for her own sake, and for Don Ferdinand's."

"Miss Coningsby," replied Marcella, "needs no interest but her own."

Louis approached with happy trepidation. What he said was as little to the purpose, as it was unheard by Marcella; and would have been marvelled at by Cornelia, had she not lately found a key in her own bosom, to explain language that had no visible meaning, and certain inconsistencies in demeanour, which betrayed all they meant to conceal.