the bed-side of her friend, and watching her pale and wasted countenance. Rose unclosed her eyes, and a smile played faintly about her lips. She murmured a few indistinct words, and then sank into a sweet and refreshing sleep. Soon after day-break she awoke again, she looked up at her friend, and smiled upon her, and spoke to her, but Winifred's heart died within her as she listened: she had waited, in the joyful stillness of hope, to see her beloved companion awake from that quiet sleep, and she did wake with a tint like that of returning health upon her cheek, with calm words and gentle smiles, but, alas! they were the words and the smiles of an idiot. The whirlwind of woe and overwhelming horror had passed entirely away; but it had left a blank, a vacancy, in the intellect of the poor maiden. Thought and memory were gone, and surely their absence was a blessing given to her by her pitying Father. Winifred soon learned to think so, and to bless that heavenly Father for the change which she at first lamented. Rose could not recollect her, but she seemed to love her better than before. They could

never converse again on the memories of their youthful days, and Winifred wept to think that those days were better forgotten. In her mind Frank Aleyn was connected with almost every joy of their childhood. He had loved her as a sister; but she had felt for him, unknown to every one, the full and devoted affection of a wife. Her secret was never known, for to most observers she appeared one of those cold and gentle beings who are pronounced incapable of strong feeling. The shrine of passion was deep within her heart, but the flame did not burn less ardently because its light was never seen. The trial of Winifred had been severe, and she did often weep over it in secret, but she prayed also in secret; and she learned humbly and heartily to join praises to her prayers, to feel how good it was for her to be in sorrow. Thus she learned to be at first resigned and then happy.

The aged grandmother of Frank Aleyn had died within a few days after his execution; and Mrs. Langland took the helpless and unconscious Rose to be unto her as a daughter.

After her recovery, they left Taunton, and Winifred became the constant companion of her friend. The gentle Rose lived on in a calm of enjoyment, pleased with the sounds and sights of nature, the song of birds, the colours and the fragrance of flowers. Her smiles often made Winifred melancholy, but others loved to see them; and the villagers where she lived would say, when they gazed upon her calm and beautiful countenance, "Who would guess that yon fair maiden has suffered enough to break any human heart?" Her ways were ever gentle; she seldom spoke but to her friend, whose mere presence was a delight to her, and whom she would follow as a loving and docile child.

The only thing that agitated the poor girl was the sound of music, which Rose had once loved; it now terrified her. It might have been that some remembrance of the music heard on one dreadful morning still clung to her mind; but so it was, that, if music sounded near her, her smiles vanished, tears started into her eyes, and she fled trembling with horror to her friend Winifred. For some years

the gentle Rose lived in the bloom of apparent health; but in her twenty-third year her slight strength began to fail, and she faded away like a flower broken on its stalk. The colour departed from her cheek and lips, and a languid heaviness gathered about her soft eyes. She could soon only walk when supported by her beloved Winifred, and at last she was carried out into the flower-garden on mild warm mornings, for she could not bear to remain in her chamber: she loved the light and the sweet summer air.

It was a morning in June-much such a morning as that on which Rose set out on her last hopeless visit to Taunton. Winifred was sitting on a green bank near the house, partly shaded by the branches of a large rose tree. She had often, in the presence of Rose, read aloud from the Book of God, with a hope which she dared not confess to herself, that her words might at last be understood. She was now reading from the Epistles of St. John; and Rose, with her face leaning on her friend's bosom, lay reclining in her arms. She had finished reading, when Rose lifted up her face,

and gazed earnestly on the sky. Winifred saw that a sudden change had come over her countenance: she saw Rose raise her clasped hands, and a few faint words were breathed from her lips. A thrill of rapture darted through the heart of Winifred, for those words were the clear language of thoughtful and connected prayer the light of intelligence shone for an instant in her eyes, and then the fair lids closed over them. Still the lips moved, but her words were now like sighs, and Winifred listened to them in vain. She pressed her lips to those of the dying maiden, and a smile broke like sun-light over the pallid features: gradually its lustre died away, for the spirit of life was gone!