sion, situated about five miles south from Helmsley, and which, as part of the Fairfax estates, had several years ago fallen into the possession of his Grace.

Here, after waiting for some minutes in a large antique room hung round with numerous. specimens of armour, light steps were heard, and presently, the door opening, Adeline rushed into his arms. She had evidently suffered severely from fatigue, anxiety, and terror, nor was the information which Mr. Walsingham had to communicate, in the least degree calculated to allay her apprehensions. He told it her, however, with such qualifying circumstances, as, while they strongly painted the sufferings of Edward, and the distress of Lluellyn, might yet lead to the reasonable indulgence of hope; and they instantly left Gilling Castle with all the speed which the darkness of the night, and the almost exhausted strength of Adeline would allow.

The fears and anxieties of the unhappy girl increased, however, in proportion as they approached the cottage of the Rye; and so enfeebled, indeed, had she become through the

intensity of her feelings, that, as the servants, on her arrival, were assisting in taking her from her horse, she fainted in their arms. In short, the task which now devolved upon Mr. Walsingham was of the most delicate and distressing nature, and required all that prudence and circumspection which, fortunately for those around him, he was known to possess in an eminent degree.

As soon, therefore, as Adeline had recovered from the effects of exhaustion, he prepared to communicate to Lluellyn and Edward the glad tidings of her return. They had both passed the interval, during Mr. Walsingham's absence, in sleepless anxiety, and some address was necessary, more especially with regard to the latter, in order to prevent the welcome intelligence from producing too powerful an excitement. It was deemed, indeed, essential to the security of Edward, that he should, for the present, remain satisfied with hearing of the safety of Adeline, while, after a short preparatory notice, the daughter was restored to the arms of her aged father.

Pathetic in the highest degree was the meet

ing between the blind Lluellyn, and his affectionate child. σε My father, my poor father!" "My Adeline, my dear and only Adeline!" was all that escaped in words, ere they were locked in silence within each other's arms.

Yet the shock which Lluellyn had received from the suddenness and violence of the event which had deprived him for a time of his only stay and hope, was but too visibly depicted on his shrunk and pallid features, and with the tears of joy which streamed from the eyes of Adeline, and bathed the bosom of the good old man, were mingled many which fell in apprehension for his future safety.

Nature, however, exhausted by her own conflicting emotions, soon gave way to the blessings of repose, and in the morning Adeline had the gratification of seeing him considerably revived. It was then, that, with the permission of his medical attendant, she was admitted to a sight of Edward. He lay pale and extended on the bed, breathing with some difficulty, and occasionally racked with pain; but the entrance of her for whom alone he wished to live, reanimated, for a moment, his languid frame. They

were left alone; she knelt by his side; with a voice tremulous with emotion, and whilst the tears fell fast upon the hand he stretched to meet her, she thanked him fervently and tenderly for the efforts he had made to save her. A smile of ineffable sweetness played upon his opening lips; a faint hectic passed across his cheek, and pressing her to his heart, he blessed the moment which had brought her to the cottage of the Rye. The pressure was returned, almost unconsciously returned;—it was the hour of gratitude and love, of love which innocence might own without a blush, of gratitude, which heaven might sanction with delight; and it was then that Adeline first heard that confession of attachment, the transient thought of whose existence had sometimes stolen on her nights of sorrow with all the fascination of a fairy dream.

There is in this intercommunication of the young and guileless heart, when love first springs within its recesses, so much of that delicious and that hallowed feeling which built the paradise of Eden, and which flows in a great measure from the conscious sense of being the object of a pure affection, that there are few

adversities in this world over which it does not shed, in some degree, a soothing balm; and fortunate was it for Adeline, that at the moment when she would otherwise have felt the pang of utter destitution, this sweet assurance came to save her from an early grave; for, alas! much as her confidence had been raised by the partial restoration of Lluellyn, she was about to lose that dear and valued parent.

The agony which he had endured from the apprehended loss of his child, and the sorrow which he had experienced from being the cause, however involuntary on his part, of so much misery to his friends, had proved too much for his advanced years, and shattered frame. Even the revivescence which the safe return of his daughter had at first produced, served but more rapidly to exhaust the strength which his previous sufferings had spared; and he felt that in a few days he should enter that better world, where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.

There were few persons, indeed, more thoroughly prepared for the change, than was Lluellyn; yet there was one tie, one tender tie,