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18. Hailed by affectionate greetings springing from the endearing ties of conjugal, paternal and filial tenderness, the morrow came, and day succeeding to day stole on as formerly.

The autumn was far advanced, but still that season brought with it enjoyment. Mrs. De Brooke renewed her excursions around the country, when she was often shocked in beholding the awful scenes occasioned by the late ravages. Superstition and fanaticism had led these barbarous people to the most frenzied acts of intolerance. Temples where the Protestant votary was wont to lift up his soul in prayer, became theatres of the most dreadful outrages: shut within those consecrated walls were men, women and children, who, falling into the grasp of ignorance and bigotry, were doomed to perish before the altars of their God, in a manner afflictive to humanity. Consumed by the all-devouring flame, fit emblem of an infernal zeal, their groans and shrieks conveying a savage joy to their murderers, until heard no longer, faint and dying, these victims of an intolerant superstition were buried in the conflagration amidst the ruins forming their funeral pile. "May your sufferings in death atone for errors past," was the prayer breathed by Mrs. De