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'Tis a fair tree, the almond tree: there Spring Shows the first promise of her rosy wreath; Or ere the green leaves venture from the bud, These fragile blossoms light the winter bough With delicate colours, heralding the rose, Whose own Aurora they might seem to be. What links beneath their faint and lovely red? What the dark spirit in those fairy flowers? 'Tis death!

night was unusually dreary as, for the last time, Henrietta sat listening to the wind that moaned, in fitful intervals, round the ancient house. There was not another sound; she seemed the only creature alive in the world, so profound was the quiet, and so dreary. The red gleams of the wood fire flickered over the black wainscot in fantastic combinations; the long shadows from the lamp fell dark upon