CHAPTER VI. "Pleads she in earnest-look upon her face, Her words come from her mouth-ours from our She We breast. prays but faintly, and would be denied. pray with heart and soul." Es war eine Irrthum-und es hat ein ganze Leben ungeseligt. It was now nine days since Hervie's departure, and his absence certainly made a great difference to Avice. She thought over his history ever since she had known him or heard of him. The death of his mother, and his grief, though not four years old, his peculiar trials in consequence, his irritable temperament, his indolence and yet enthusiasm, his deep piety and never-failing kindness to all in distress, his own agony when his father died while travelling with him in Russia, his seclusion, and his tardy return to the world, &c. Now we know no one can hardly love him whom she remembers in a dirty pinafore, unless there be extraordinary congeniality of disposition—or no one else—and yet he evidently occupied her mind. But Avice had only to glance but a little way, and she felt that there was no love there. It was luxuryluxury she seldom allowed herself, to go over in spirit those former days, when a loving loyal heart had beat high in her bosom on the day of her presentation, with devoted affection, to our precious Queen, and had very shortly afterwards been spell-bound by "the mind, the music breathing from one face"-the face of Ethelred Kent! She remembered of course the room in which he was presented, at his own request, to her-that was nothing remarkable; but she recollected also the very waltz that was sounding in her ears, the very harmony of his voice with its tones, the very glance of his glorious eyes. She did not waltz, and he conversed with her till it was over; she remembered every meeting during two successive seasons. She remembered his proposal-oh! so well. She remembered her authorised acceptance to, and how perfectly happy she had been. But one day, in the summer of 1848, she and her father, and Ethelred, were all staying with the Sylvertons, when her father suddenly informed Ethelred that there was a difficulty. "Ethelred owned to none; his parents were then in India, and their answer could not arrive for some time, as they were moving about up the country; but he did not fear any objection -they had long known of his attachment, and never disapproved of it, or commented upon it. What could the obstacle be?" "Lord Keffsdale's great grandfather had died insane!" "At what age?" "At seventy-seven." "Is that all? That is no obstacle at all.” "One may die of anything at seventy-seven, it is true, but your father has a horror of madness; he will make it a difficulty; but here is Avice." "Does she know it?" Yes, certainly, she does." Avice drew near, and the conversation dropped. Lord Keffsdale, however, was in so exceedingly nervous a condition, that he had no peace lest this marriage should not take place. And now comes a very extraordinary part of my story: his restlessness was so incessant, that he would walk about the whole day, and often came upon Avice and Ethelred in their walks. He frequently held an old sermon in his hand (for he had been in holy orders, until his elder brother's death, without wife or babes, made him a peer), and armed with his sermon he would say, "Go on and do not mind me, I am reading." One day, while they were talking, they wandered deep into the woods, and were too late for dinner. Lord Keffsdale privately told them that he would bring them back in time, if they liked to go there again; and a few days afterwards they did start early in the day, and wandered down the same paths again. They went on, and on, expecting to find him, and giving the subject far less attention, than the effect of the sunshine in each other's eyes, until at length they found themselves near a village church. Service was just over, and Lord Keffsdale came out with the congregation. He proposed to them that he should marry them privately; Avice was horrified! Ethelred surprised, but not very much shocked. Lord Keffsdale produced a special licence, pleaded to Ethelred the fears he entertained of his father's refusal to Avice, dropped alarming hints of the state of his own health, and advised her to let him "give her away before he died," till she was quite unfit to reason with him, and was led bewildered in the church. The clergyman did |