your heart can you forget how you stood in silence before this Bible, and seemed to draw in comfort to your soul, even till the tears blinded your sight, and you could not read: you had not wept since my father's death till then. Here," and Gabrielle turned over a few of the pages, "here is the place where you were reading, in Isaiah; I can never forget it. Were not these some of the words which refreshed your soul in the multitude of your sorrows ? • The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit — O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted' - I well remember how you spoke to us afterwards on these last words. The afflicted person you compared to some poor mean dwelling, which God had brought down to the ground, only that he might build it again with His own mercies into a splendid palace to His glory and thus you explained to us these beautiful words: 'Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.' There is

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another verse," said the maiden, with a sweet and modest solemnity of manner," and you explained it to us then; you spoke on its precious promises till your countenance lost all its sadness, and the tones of your voice were firm with joyful confidence; And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.' This was your greatest comfort. Ah! have we not been taught of the Lord? for have you not taught us from His Word? And shall it ever be that your commands differ from those which you did teach us to obey? Shall your children ever say, "I cannot serve both God and my own mother with the same obedience?" I know little of the differences of party; I have no learned arguments to bring forward: I can only stand here, and think upon the good old way which I have learned to find in this Bible, in which we have all lived, in which my father and my brother died. Can all that you have taught me from this book be false? Can this be the time when we should renounce our simple faith, so long the hope, the joy of our souls? now, when the persecutions and the cruelties of

bad men have attacked us? Shall we take, in exchange for our souls, worldly treasures and the favour of perishing mortals? Shall we follow the example of those in old time, who loved the praise of men more than the praise of God? O forgive me, my own mother, if a word that I speak should seem unkind or disrespectful to you! I well know how weak, how agitated you have long been; but I cannot bear to hear your voice condemn me for holding fast the truths you first declared to me. I have no earthly friend but you to support me in this trial. My father, Gaston, are not here, poor Olivier has forsaken us. Must I stand here alone, almost the only one of those who once crowded round this Bible? O God! is there not one left among my once holy and happy family, to worship Thee in spirit and in truth?"

The Countess rose up at these words, feeble and overcome as she was with the conduct of her faithful child. With trembling steps, with extended arms she advanced, and, clasping the maiden to her breast, she looked up to heaven and exclaimed, "It is, indeed, true, O

Lord, my child hath been taught of thy SpiritI will not fear, for we shall not be confounded. Let every trouble come upon us, great will be the peace of this blessed child. But O God!" she added, "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. O God, be merciful to me a sinner!”

Alain was deeply affected by all that he had witnessed. He felt, he certainly felt for the time, what he expressed. He loved Gabrielle, and she appeared to him like no earthly being, as she stood up appealing to the Book of God, with a look and voice which made her simple words like inspired eloquence to him. He gazed on her like one enchanted; his senses were ravished by the pure spell of her loveliness, till the music of her voice ceased, and he be→ held her clasped to the bosom of her mother. When the maiden turned, Alain was at her feet. "I am convinced," he said, half rising from the ground, and looking up in her face, "the faith you profess cannot be renounced, I will never ask you to deny it." As he spake thus, a deep blush mantled over the face of Gabrielle, but in a moment she was deadly

pale, and clung, trembling with emotion, to her mother. "I am no longer a Papist. One faith now unites our souls. I will fly with you, suffer with you, die with you, but leave you I cannot. Guide me as you will, for I am wholly yours."It was now that Gabrielle found herself really tempted, her former trials seemed as nothing, when she looked back on them. "Do you still refuse me, do you still drive me from you?" he cried wildly, observing the mute consternation of the trembling girl: "Is my love then hateful to you? Speak to me, for my soul is maddening. I have given up all for you, and I did hope to be repulsed no longer." "Oh spare me, spare me, Alain!” replied the maiden, and she almost gasped for words: she was too overwhelmed to speak distinctly:" Amid the storm which you have raised in my bosom, I can still see a faint and struggling light which must direct me. I do not refuse your love; but at present I cannot be your wife. The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable; it knows not the wildness, the delirium of such words as those you have uttered. I never doubted your love to