drops of anguish stained her cheek at the goading recollection, that she who had entered Paris a few months back, rich in circumstances, spotless in fame, without one self-reproach rankling at her heart, supported by friendship, and proud in her own consciousness, was now leaving it with a fortune injured by her own imprudence, a character calumniated by that malice her own unguarded levity had sanctioned, and without one friend to support her in those sufferings of which she had been herself the author.

CHAP. XXXVII.

"Desolate is the dwelling of Morna-Silence is in "the house of her fathers."

OSSIAN.

IMOGEN continued to prosecute her solitary journey with an extreme impati ence to arrive at its conclusion, but without any interest except what awakened at

the recollection of those objects or scenes which she had passed by with the chevalier, whose just and tasteful remarks still seemed to vibrate on her ear as she contemplated them.

"But how different," said she,

my "C present sensations from those I then experienced! Then life flushed upon me "under a thousand alluring aspects; no

velty shed its charm upon every object; "expectation pointed to scenes of Elysian "beauty, and fancy peopled them with beings of celestial mould;-then all was

pleasure unalloyed by doubt, and happi"ness secured by self-approbation! Such "I then was. O God! what am I now! Amiable de Sorville! first and best of "men, my last and dearest friend, who "still clung to my ill-fated destiny, until "I drove thee from me by an imprudence you could not prevent, and dared not

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witness, why did I not listen to that દ warning voice of thine, when, like a "guardian spirit, you hovered round your

“wayward charge! Why, oh! why did "I not seize the honour of which I was "so unworthy, fulfil the wishes of my "sainted parent, and, in the peaceful "shades of my ancestors, lead such a life "as heaven itself approves and delights to "behold!"

To this apostrophe succeeded a train of thought of a more tender, a more dangerous, nature. But Imogen resisted the sweet and soft solicitations of her heart, and forced her reflections from an object on which they still delighted with hopeless fondness to linger.

Early on the morning of her last day's journey she sent her page forward to inform her steward of her arrival, to whom she had, previous to her leaving Paris, dispatched a courier.

Towards the decline of a fine spring evening she beheld for the first time the rising turrets of the chateau de St. Dorval; faintly defined on the deep red glow of the horizon, they rose above the dark

woods which surrounded them. The sun was shedding its last beam on the massy clouds which floated in the atmosphere, and seemed portentous of a storm that already murmured along the summit of the highest trees.

All was wild and desolate; the deepening gloom of evening was only at intervals illumined by those transient corruscations which shed a livid light on every object, and rather rendered the darkness visible than dispelled it; while the profound silence of the hour was only interrupted by the distant murmur of the mountain torrent, the faint vibration of a convent's deep-toned bell, and the "shard borne "beetle's" drowsy hum, as in his winding course he sung out "night's yawning 66 peal."

The imagination of Imogen, still susceptible to every impression, was deeply touched by the gloom that surrounded her; while, as her litter proceeded along an avenue of considerable length, cut through

the forest of St. Dorval, her mind was absorbed in those awful and solemn sensations the solitude by which she was surrounded, and the contemplation of the ancient residence of her ancestors, visited for the first time under such peculiar circumstances, were calculated to inspire.

They at last reached the extremity of the avenue, which terminated in an expansive green platform; a deep moat surrounded a high parapet wall, which enclosed a spacious court, whose portals opened at the foot of a draw-bridge; in the midst of the court stood a vast and stately edifice, which, though wrapt in the shades of night, appeared to Imogen of considerable magnitude and extent.

When the fatigued and solitary traveler alighted from her litter, and entered the portals of her chateau, she was surrounded by a groupe of ancient domestics, who, though now almost past service, enjoyed a comfortable asylum and a small independence, secured to them by the bounty of