flowers over that grave?"

"Stay with us," said the blind man; "not for our sake, but your own. The
world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and
live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer
you are;--and you have a little money, you say!"

"I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we
shall meet again."

"Must you go?" said Fanny, tenderly. "But you will come again; you know
I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet
still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!"

At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed a
posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained
the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent
strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike
the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy of
Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his air--
and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the Bourbon
knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and his raven
hair curled close to the stately head. The soldier-moustache--thick, but
glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and the pointed beard, assumed by the
exiled Carlists, heightened the effect of the strong and haughty features
and the expression of the martial countenance.

But as Fanny's voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face;
and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of