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320 side her, and she had been for some time engaged in prayer, when suddenly she inquired, ‘Has the clock not yet struck nine?’ ‘Not yet—but it is near the hour, answered my father.’ ‘Well then,—you will not forget me,’ said Seraphina, grasping my hand, ‘Ere long we shall meet again!’ Just as the clock began to strike nine, she sank back on her pillow and expired!

“All this I have repeated from the account given me by my father, for I was so completely overcome by the agony of my own feelings, that during that dreadful day of Seraphina’s illness, I knew not what passed around me. It was not till after her death, that I awoke again to self-consciousness—to resume my part in a world which now appeared to me like a desert. Besides, I could not help reproaching myself, that the state into which I was brought by my anxiety and horror, must have made me appear to Seraphina, as if I were wanting in due attention to her in her last moments. Even to this hour I never can think of that scene, without shuddering. After the day of her funeral, my father sat with me here in this room at the same hour of the evening. ‘You must be aware, Florentine,’ said he,