cold extremities, together with the fact that she had taken no nourishment whatever since she had been laid on her bed, convinced me that the poor girl's sufferings were soon to terminate. I was at a loss for a length of time how to break the oppressive silence. Observing, however, her fading eyes fixed on me, I determined, as it were, accidentally, to attract them to the fatal letter which I then held in my hand. After a while she observed it; her eye suddenly settled on the ample coroneted seal, and the sight operated something like an electric shock. She seemed struggling to speak, but in vain. I now wished to heaven I had never agreed to undertake the duty which had been imposed upon me. I opened the letter, and looking steadfastly at her, said, in as soothing tones as my agitation could command, "My dear girl, now don't be alarmed, or I shall not tell you what I am going to tell you." She trembled, and her sensibilities seemed suddenly restored; for her eye assumed an expression of alarmed intelligence, and her lips moved about like those of a person who feels them parched with agitation, and endeavours to moisten them. "This letter has been received today from Paris," I continued; "it is from Colonel Lord and brings word that-that-that-" I felt suddenly choked, and could not bring out the words.

"That my Charles is DEAD! I know it. Did I not tell you so?" said Miss interrupting me, with as clear and distinct a tone of voice as she ever had in her life. I felt confounded. Had the unexpected operation of the news I brought been able to dissolve the spell which had withered her mental energies, and afford promise of her restoration to health? Has the reader ever watched a candle which is flickering and expiring in its socket, suddenly shoot up into an instantaneous brilliance, and then be utterly extinguished? I soon saw it was thus with poor All the expiring energies of her soul were L

Miss

suddenly collected to receive this corroboration of her vision (if such it may be called), and then she would, "Like a lily drooping,

Bow her head, and die."

To return. She begged me, in a faltering voice, to read her all the letter. She listened with closed eyes, and made no remark when I had concluded. After a long pause, I exclaimed, "God be praised, my dear Miss, that you have been able to receive this dreadful news so firmly!"

"Doctor, tell me, have you no medicine that could make me weep? Oh, give it me, give it me; it would relieve me, for I feel a mountain on my breast-it is pressing me," replied she, feebly, uttering the words at long intervals. Pressing her hand in mine, I begged her to be calm, and the oppression would soon disappear.

"Oh-oh-oh, that I could weep, doctor!" She whispered something else, but inaudibly. I put my ear close to her mouth, and distinguished something like the words, "I am-I am-call her-hush," accompanied with a faint, fluttering, gurgling sound. Alas! I too well understood it! With much trepidation I ordered the nurse to summon the family into the room instantly. Her sister Jane was the first that entered, her eyes swollen with weeping, and seemingly half-suffocated with the effort to conceal her emotions.

"Oh, my darling, precious, precious sister Anne!" she sobbed, and knelt down at the bedside, flinging her arms round her sister's neck, kissing the gentle sufferer's cheeks and mouth.

66

Anne!--love!-darling!-Don't you know me ?" she groaned, kissing her forehead repeatedly. Could I help weeping? All who had entered were standing around the bed, sobbing, and in tears. I kept my fingers at the wrist of the dying sufferer, but could not feel whether or not the pulse beat; which, however, I attributed to my own agitation.

"Speak-speak-my darling Anne! Speak to me -I am your poor sister Jane!" sobbed the agonized girl, continuing fondly kissing her sister's cold lips and forehead. She suddenly started, exclaimed "Oh God, she's dead!" and sunk instantly senseless on the floor. Alas! alas! it was too true; my sweet and broken-hearted patient was no more!

CHAPTER IV.

CONSUMPTION-THE SPECTRAL DOG-THE FORGER.

Consumption.

CONSUMPTION!-Terrible, insatiable tyrant! who can arrest thy progress, or number thy victims? why dost thou attack almost exclusively the fairest and loveliest of our species? why select blooming and beautiful youth instead of haggard and exhausted age? why strike down those who are bounding blithely from the starting-post of life, rather than the decrepit beings tottering towards its goal? By what infernal subtlety hast thou contrived hitherto to baffle the profoundest skill of science, to frustrate utterly the uses of experience, and disclose thyself only when thou hast irretrievably secured thy victim, and thy fangs are crimsoned with its blood? Destroying angel!-why art thou commissioned thus to smite down the first-born of agonized humanity? What are the strange purposes of Providence, that thus letteth thee loose upon the objects of its infinite goodness?

Alas! how many aching hearts have been agitated with these unanswerable questions, and how many myriads are yet to be wrung and tortured by them!

-Let me proceed to lay before the reader a short and simple statement of one of the many cases of consumption, and all its attendant broken-heartedness, with which a tolerably extensive practice has, alas! crowded my memory. The one immediately following has been selected, because it seemed to me, though destitute of varied and stirring incident, calculated on various accounts to excite peculiar interest and sympathy. Possibly there are a few who may consider the ensuing pages pervaded by a tone of exaggeration. It is not so. My heart has really ached under the task of recording the bitter premature fate of one of the most lovely and accomplished young women I ever knew; and the vivid recollection of her sufferings, as well as those of her anguished relations, may have led me to adopt strong language; but not strong enough adequately to express my feelings.

Miss Herbert lost both her father and mother before she had attained her tenth year, and was solemnly committed by each to the care of her uncle, a baronet, who was unmarried, and, through disappointment in a first attachment, seemed likely to continue so to the end of his life. Two years after his brother's death, he was appointed to an eminent official situation in India, as the fortune attached to his baronetcy had suffered severely from the extravagance of his predecessors. He was for some time at a loss how to dispose of his little niece. Should he take her with him to India, accompanied by a first-rate governess, and have her carefully educated under his own eye? or leave her behind in England, at one of the fashionable boarding-schools, and trust to the general surveillance of a distant female relation? He decided on the former course; and accordingly, very shortly after completing her twelfth year, this little blooming exotic was transplanted to the scorched soil, and destined to "waste its sweetness" on the sultry air of India. A more delicate

and lovely little creature than was Eliza Herbert at this period cannot be conceived. She was the only bud from a parent stem of remarkable beauty; but, alas! that stem was suddenly withered by consumption! Her father, also, fell a victim to the fierce typhus fever only half a year after the death of his wife. Little Eliza Herbert inherited, with her mother's beauty, her constitutional delicacy. Her figure was so slight, that it almost suggested to the beholder the idea of transparency; and there was a softness and languor in her azure eyes, beaming through their long silken lashes, which told of something too refined for humanity. Her disposition fully comported with her person and habits—arch,” mild, and intelligent, with a little dash of pensiveness. She loved the shade of retirement. If she occasionally flitted for a moment into the world, its glare and uproar seemed almost to stun her gentle spirit. She was, almost from infancy, devotedly fond of reading; and sought with peculiar avidity books of sentiment. Her gifted preceptress, one of the most amiable and refined of women, soon won her entire confidence, and found little difficulty in imparting to her apt pupil all the stores of her own superior and extensive accomplishments. Not a day passed over that did not find Eliza Herbert riveted more firmly in the hearts of all who came near her, from her doting uncle down to the most distant domestic. Every luxury that wealth and power could procure was, of course, always at her command; her own innate propriety and just taste prompted her to prefer simplicity in all things. Flattery of all kinds she abhorred; and forsook the house of a rich old English lady, who once told her to her face she was a beautiful little angel! In short, a more sweet, lovely, and amiable being than Eliza Herbert never adorned the ranks of humanity. The only fear which incessantly haunted those around her, and kept Sir in a feverish flutter of apprehension every day of his life, was, that his niece