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 up to be as good and true a man as your father was. To tell you all the reasons why they slew him so cruelly,”—and here again the tears flowed fast,—“would only seem an idle tale, so dreadful and so wicked does it seem. But I must believe that such deeds will bring down on those who commit them a punishment as sure as it will be deserved.”

Lady Ludmila, too, moved with quiet gracefulness through her apartments. Her step continued not less light and elastic; and her dignity had assumed a subdued seriousness and tender affability that diffused a sense of serenity all around her. Lord Drda came and went,and received the gentle welcome that concealed no love, and assumed no repulsion.

Quietly they strolled, and talked, and confided in each other. As gently as the summer blends with the autumn, their two hearts mingled in happy oneness and unconstrained affection.

Lady Judith gazed on the avowed devotion of the lovers to each other, and smiled as she sympathized with their happiness; and then she drew her boy closer to her, as being the living embodiment of her own love now past, and the center of her widowed hopes.

At intervals Prokop visited his friends, and with unaffected earnestness and simplicity inspired all hearts with his own devotion to the duties and sympathies before them.

During one of these always welcome residences, as he passed with cheering message from the home of comparative prosperity to the refuge of poverty and