"Murder." These passed over her ear as of no consequence: she wished for another reply, but still durst not inquire for it directly. "But what are you thinking of now?" asked she.

"I shall not be found out; I hid him carefully in the chestnut wood," was the answer.

"What do you mean?" continued the breathless girl, horror-struck at the promptitude of his replies, and their hideous import. "My cousin Ausler," returned her lover, steadily, in the same unnatural tone, "I have murdered him!"

It was well that the Lady Jane had a stout spirit; otherwise she would have shrieked aloud with amazement and terror, upon hearing so dreadful a story as that set forth in the answers of the sleeper. With the idea full upon her mind, that she had extorted a horrible secret from her lover, corroborated, too, by recalling, as she did, all his anxious looks and troubled words, it required no small measure of fortitude to withdraw without daring another word, or awakening the sleeper, and charging him with his spontaneously avowed crime. This, however, she did, and managed to reach her chamber without detection. Once there, the awe of the hour, and the dreadful communication she had extorted, totally overcame her, and she fell upon her bed, fainting, and half senseless.

It was no uncommon thing for the heiress of Wanderstein to arise betimes in the morning, even at that bitter sea son of the year, and to walk abroad. She was a keen lover of nature, and had from her infancy been accustomed to disregard cold and storm. But it was not to look at the icicles of the waterfall, or to watch the sun coming up red behind the snowy hills, that she went forth on the next morning, wrapped in her warm, furred mantle. She stole out as silently as though she had been going to adventure some charm, the success of which depended upon the secresy of its performance. One imagination had engrossed her mind all the night, and she hastened onwards with feverish speed, despising all the difficulties and weariness of a long forest walk. It was hardly perfect daylight, and the complete stillness of the icy woods, would have been fearful to her in another state of mind, but she did not heed it then. She reached the chestnut wood, and gasping for breath, went on. A byeroad crossed this part of the domain, about a hundred paces distant from the

spot where she stood; and a thick underwood of briers filled up the interstices between the huge leafless trees. As she hurried on, looking to the right and left, she was struck by some brighter colour in one of these thickets than the hue of fallen leaves or late ripened berries. Gasping for breath, and, in spite of the speed at which she had walked, as pale as fallen snow, she approached nearer to the object of her suspicion; when she discovered, thrust up among the underwood, the body of a man clad in the fragments of a scarlet mantle. It was turned half upon its face; and except the cloak, which was much rent, had little other covering. A livid mark was round the neck, as though the unfortunate wretch had been strangled. The shape of the head, the form, and as much of the unpleasant, and now distorted features as could be seen, hardly admitted of a doubt; but she tore away the briers wildly, and drew closer to the corpse, to make assurance certainty. The words of the slumberer were verified, there lay the lifeless form of the avaricious and surly Herr Ausler!

She

was

To her dying day she could never tell how she reached her own home again. One solitary idea possessed her. born of the strong promptings of a woman's love,-it was, to hide the tremendous crime which had been so mysteriously revealed to her. knew that the knowledge she possessed, must for ever place a gulf between her and her betrothed. The idea of wedding a murderer was hateful, impossible; and to meet him full of the consciousness of his guilt, and yet with the composure requisite to ensure its concealment, would be to impose a restraint upon her feelings, which she felt was at present too mighty to bear. She therefore pleaded a violent headache, as an excuse for confining herself to her chamber all that day, and remained totally alone and silent behind the closely drawn curtains of her bed. In vain did the kind Richilda endeavour to discover some reason for this sudden malady; and Philip came at least a hundred times to her door, to inqure if she felt herself better. The sound of his step made her shiver. Then, the wind, howling around the old castle, and the hoof-tramps of passing horsemen, were all so many causes of fresh dread and misery. The murderer had been discovered,-and they were coming to drag the criminal to justice. So did she torment herself

with terrible musings all that long day; but she kept her resolution, and told to none the cause of her sufferings, which as night came on, seemed as though they would increase to an agony she could no longer bear. She had never looked on a dead person before; and the image of the murdered miser, multiplied into a thousand distorted forms, seemed to stare upon her from every side, and filled her dreams, when at length exhausted by the conflict of spirit for so many hours, she slept.

Another morning came; the pretext of illness could no longer be maintained, and at a late hour she descended to the breakfast parlour, with a tolerably composed brow. Philip was there, apparently expecting her appearance with considerable impatience; he was walking hastily to and fro, and when he saw her, he greeted her eagerly. The Lady Jane shrunk back from him, and replied in a cold and confused manner to his affectionate words.

"You look ill yet, my love!" he said; "and I grieve that I must leave you so soon, my horse and servant are, I see already approaching the portal."

"I thought," stammered she, "that you were going to pay us a longer visit." "Fie upon you! whispered Richilda, who stood close behind her; how.constrained you are, and capricious; and poor Count Philip notices it too."

""

The cavalier did, in truth, seem greatly troubled in mind, and at a loss to account for the uncertain manners of the young lady. "I am indeed sorry,' said he, "to leave you thus ; but tidings have reached me within this half-hour, which call me away imperatively; but I pray you fo believe that I shall return in another week, when all obstacles will be done away with. I can explain myself no further."

"At these words, unintelligible to every one else, the young lady turned deadly faint, and would have fallen, had not Count Philip caught her in his arms. "What can this mean, Richilda?" said he, much distressed: "she is very ill, her forehead is as cold as clay, and her pulse is almost gone."

The Lady Jane endeavoured to rally herself; and feebly disengaging herself from his embrace, "I am indeed weaker than I thought," said she; "but, if you must go, farewell! and-"

"There, again! cried Richilda, in high displeasure; 66 as if you were the proper person to put him in mind of his hurry; what is the matter with you?

You are as chill as marble this morning."

Nay, peace, good Richilda," said Philip: "she is really very ill, and shall not be scolded; take care of her until I return, and I will bring you both good tidings. Farewell, sweetest! I must go:" and folding her in an embrace which she had no power to resist, he left her in the arms of her old nurse, who first wondered, and then wept, at the unaccountable events of the morning "Such a doleful love-visit as this," cried she, "was surely never known: Count Philip gone, the saints know whither! and my lady in this miserable hysterical way: heaven take away the evil spell that is hanging over us!"

It was about noon, when the cause of Count Philip's departure, which had made a great commotion in the neighbourhood, became known at Wanderstein.-The murder of Herr Ausler had been discovered by some labouring woodmen, and a band of notorious forest thieves had been apprehended, in whose possession such valuables were found as a traveller on horseback would be likely to carry-arms, a portmanteau, and many articles of clothing, all readily identified as having belonged to the deceased. His horse, too, had been found loose in the forest, at the distance of a few miles from the spot where the deed of violence had been committed. Richilda flew openmouthed with the news of this to her lady, who heard her tale and shuddered: "I shall, then," she said to herself, "bear my dismal secret with me to my grave."

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"And O, my sweet lady!" continued the talkative old woman, now that Count Philip will doubtless succeed to the estates of his cousin, you will be married immediately; that is, as soon as a decent time has elapsed; though I don't suppose that any one will think of mourning very long for that wicked old gentleman, although his end was so unlucky; and we will have the gayest wedding imaginable."

"Pray, dear Richilda, have done; you know not how you distress me."

Nay, my sweet child, if you weep, I have done; but I do not half understand you. I must go and tell your papa, at least, for I am sure that no one else will have patience to explain to him the whole story properly."

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Any thing!" said the unhappy girl to herself, as the door closed upon Richilda; "any thing rather to bear than her vociferous joy;" and burying her

face in the cushion of her couch, she lay for many hours without speaking or moving.

And now three months have elapsed, and the scene of my legend is changed from Castle Wanderstein to the venera-ble city of Prague: here in one of the oldest houses of one of its widest streets, lay the Lady Jane, il as was believed to death. of some grievous internal complaint. Her lover had re-appeared at the end of the week, as he had promised, and, declaring himself heir to the vast possessions of his cousin Ausler, as stated in a will, entreated her to seal their long-plighted compact by becoming his. But the Lady Jane, at once, totally and decidedly refused to fulfil her engagements. Every word he uttered his exultation in the possession of wealth, the natural manner in which he seemed already to have arranged his affairs for the present and future, were to her confirmation deep and fearful of her worst forebodings. It mattered not that the nominal murderers had been brought to justice; they had died protesting that they were guiltless; she held the real key of the mystery in her hand, and was firm in her purpose. Yet more, to strengthen her suspicions, with an impetuosity far different from the patience of his early love, he almost commanded her to explain the cause of her change of sentiments; reproaching her with an air of fierceness, which she could only ascribe to a recent familiarity with desperate actions. She would have explained herself-she would have told him what she knew; but a lurking and undefinable feeling restrained her utterance. The possession of wealth had obviously made no change in his love for her; nay, it was, perhaps, for her sake that he had loaded his soul with the guilt of murder; and though she resolved that she would never, never become his wife, she loved him in spite of his crime, she loved him, and was silent in return to his vehement wrath: seeing the total inefficacy of which, he left her; tokens were returned, an eternal farewell exchanged, and the lovers parted to meet no more.

What wonder was it then, that the Lady Jane drooped day by day, till her life was pronounced to be in danger, and it was judged expedient to send her to Prague, for the benefit of better medical skill than their desolate mountain residence afforded. She was attended by Richilda, whose love bore up cheerfully against

all the petulances and changes of mood of the invalid, and in only one point neglected her wishes. She would talk of Count Seltzermann: the fault was all his, she knew it was; but so it was, that money always made young gentlemen quarrelsome and changeable; and now, not content with having half killed her lady, he was going to marry a counsellor's widow, twice as poor and not half as pretty, merely because she had nursed him through a fever. The auda. cious woman! as if she were fit to stand in her sweet mistress' shoes!" All which information was as true in substance as if it had not passed through Richilda's keeping to the ear of her feeble and quickly waning charge.

Count Seltzermann had had a fever; and a pretty counsellor's widow, a neighbour, and an intriguante, had contrived to insinuate herself into the house, for the purpose of nursing him. "Poor soul!" she said, "he sadly needed a kind and careful woman to see after him: and she never took infection." As she spoke, so she acted; and she tended the youth to such good purpose, that in his delirium, he promised he knew not what; only that she contrived to remind him of it immediately upon his recovery. What will not an angry man do? and what cannot a persevering woman manage? In short, the wedding now only waited the arrival of his steward (who had descended to him with his estates) from Vienna, with deeds, &c., &c., and he was expected almost daily. At last the morning was fixed. Richilda, however, knew it not. One fancy possessed her. She would feast her mortification and her curiosity, by beholding her lady's rival; and after many plans, considered and rejected, the fortunate accident of the change of a servant, gave her an excuse of calling upon that odious woman, the widow Linburg.

Had her mistress known her purpose, she would doubtless have prevented it; but it was far too trifling a matter wherewith to trouble the poor dying girl, who only prayed for a quiet passage to the grave. Early one morning, before she awaked, Richilda bent her way towards the widow's house. Many and great were the signs of preparation and gaiety. Musicians, cooks, clergymen, and gaily attired guests were thronging into the house; among whom our dear old woman entered, only for one peep at the bride, and one bitter word to the bridegroom,

that she would say, if she were to be sent to the pillory for it on the instant;