incurable weakness. Consumption seized its victim. The physicians who
attended her were the most renowned in London, and Lord Saxingham was
firmly persuaded that there was no danger. It was not in his nature to
think that death would take so great a liberty with Lady Florence
Lascelles, when there were so many poor people in the world whom there
would be no impropriety in removing from it. But Florence knew her
danger, and her high spirit did not quail before it. Yet, when
Cesarini, stung beyond endurance by the horrors of his remorse, wrote
and confessed all his own share of the fatal treason, though, faithful
to his promise, he concealed that of his accomplice,--then, ah then, she
did indeed repine at her doom, and long to look once more with the eyes
of love and joy upon the face of the beautiful world. But the illness
of the body usually brings out a latent power and philosophy of the
soul, which health never knows; and God has mercifully ordained it as
the customary lot of nature, that in proportion as we decline into the
grave, the sloping path is made smooth and easy to our feet; and every
day, as the films of clay are removed from our eyes, Death loses the
false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a
wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.

It was with a heavy heart that Lady Florence listened to the monotonous
clicking of the clock that announced the departure of moments few, yet
not precious, still spared to her. Her face buried in her hands, she
bent over the small table beside her sofa, and indulged her melancholy
thoughts. Bowed was the haughty crest, unnerved the elastic shape that
had once seemed born for majesty and command--no friends were near, for
Florence had never made friends. Solitary had been her youth, and
solitary were her dying hours.

As she thus sat and mused, a sound of carriage wheels in the street