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 gain her hands; to recover her composure; and to account to him, by relating what had been her dread, and her mistake, for her flattering reception.

But she strove in vain: her efforts to disengage herself had no more that frozen severity which Harleigh had not dared resist; and though her earnestness and distress shewed their sincerity, her varying blushes, her inability to find words, and her uncontroulable emotion, demonstrated, to his quick perception, that to govern her own conflicting feelings, at this critical moment, was as difficult as to resume over his accustomed dominion.

"Here on this spot," he continued, "this blessed, sacred, hallowed spot! clear, and eternally dismiss, every torturing doubt by which I have so long been martyrized! Here let all baneful mystery, all heart-wounding distrust, be for ever exiled; and here—"

A faint, but earnest, "Oh no! no! no!" now quivered from the lips of