by halves extreme of love can only bless. The very prize of happiness is unselfish love." 66 Horatia, you are fainting," Mabel screamed, supporting her. CHAPTER VIII. Why chatters yon magpie on gable so loud? Yon pie is the prophet of terror and death; THE reader may remember that, when describing the party given at the Abbey on Christmasday, we alluded to a very ancient and vast saloon which, owing to its large dimensions, was seldom used, and which was situated on the north side of the building. It had formerly been one of the most splendid saloons in the Abbey, was ornamented with rich carvings, representing subjects appropriate to the remote period in which they were executed. The vaulted ceiling was painted in different compartments, the colours being yet bright and vivid; and the walls were adorned with the most choice and highly finished works of the old masters of Italy and Spain. This apartment, which had, as we have before stated, been long disused, was now made warm and cheering, with the aid of a huge pile of fuel, which threw a bright and vivifying glow over the room; and, at the hour we have selected to present our readers with a more minute survey of the apartment, the Duke of Gaston and the Earl were sitting, one on each side of the fire, engaged in a conversation which was evidently of absorbing interest. The Duke had come from Gunnersdown that morning, and had insisted on Rosemaldon accompanying him on a visit for three or four days to the Abbey; and, though Ernest excused himself at first, and would have desired to be spared this last trial, he could not refuse the desire of his father, without assigning the real cause-his inability, within a few days of his marriage, to meet Dungarvon's daughter with indifference. The friends (for such they really were) were talking in an under tone of Horatia, with whom the Duke had been charmed at first sight. Nor had our heroine been less struck with his kind and affectionate address on her being presented to him. She saw the father of Rosemaldon ; she believed that he had been the person who had persuaded Ernest, in the first place, to marry his cousin; and his success had occasioned much unhappiness to her. But, when she listened to his voice as he spoke to her, with feelings of interest, and she answered him in a gentle tone that expressed but too well how she could have loved him as a second father, the Duke gazed at her long and affectionately. There was something in her person and manner which reminded him strongly of his once-loved Olivia; and he fancied that there was an air of hopeless sadness about her which could not be entirely attributable to the uncertainty in which the fate of her mother was still involved. Rosemaldon's dejection, also, was most unaccountable to his father. He had questioned him in the kindest manner, and besought him to open his heart, and tell him whether he had any cause for uneasiness, or whether he was ill; but Ernest pleaded headache, lassitude, preventing all further pressing questions on the subject, by leaving the room. The Marquis, by the side of our heroine on this afternoon of their arrival at the Abbey, gazed on her anxiously, wished that he could feel as composed and indifferent as she appeared to be. But he knew not the efforts which she was compelled to make over her own feelings, in order to maintain any semblance of calmness in his presence. She spoke to him, because anything was better than silence; but when he did not reply, she never repeated her observation; but suffered him to indulge in his reveries. "I am not regretted," thought Ernest, bit |