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36 intense but silent admiration. That bloom which he had observed but recently to have slightly faded from her cheek, was again, from air and exercise, newly revived in all its glowing lustre. Nevertheless, his sense of pleasure vanished, and a sort of malign feeling, of jealousy or of envy, succeeded to it. No one, he thought, could behold her without emotion; and he was seized with the impassioned longing that no eye but his should ever revel over her charms.

Assuming his wonted self-command, and hoping to detain her, he entered upon such topics as he thought best adapted to his purpose. Rosilia, however, anxious to return to her mother, excused herself from any longer stay; and was on the point of quitting the apartment, when Melliphant, in a voice of the most touching rebuke, said "One moment, Miss De Brooke—"will you have the goodness to spare me one moment of your time? I have something to say, which as it regards your mother, I was fearful of introducing too abruptly."

Rosilia instantly turned and resumed her seat: the air of inquietude accompanying the words of Melliphant, diffusing a tremulous agitation through-out her frame.

"I would not for the world. Miss De Brooke, alarm you," he continued, after a short pause, "and yet, as I have not often occasions allowed me of seeing the General, I feel it incumbent upon me, as a duty, to inform you that, as the malady of your mother is of an