of her head, so peerlessly adorned a few seconds before, could be compared to nothing in nature, except, perhaps, the general clothes-brush at the Star and Garter Hotel, she raised each fallen victim, united them again in ghastly mockery of their pristine array, and then hung them at the foot of the large ebony and ivory crucifix before which she was wont to pour forth her prayers. These were again repeated with unusual fervour, after which she retired to her rest, not without very thoughtfully securing our hero's poetry from the indiscreet eye of the housemaid, by depositing it under her own pillow.

What were Cécile's feelings, when her throbbing brow was laid there again at the close of this eventful day? Shall we attempt to divine or to describe them? Perchance, to be sure, may we have known some that were not wholly dissimilar in the merry days when beauty's passing smile would cast us, for a fortnight at least, into a state of moody abstraction, from which none were to attempt to recall us at the peril of their lives; and when her frown, nay, even her absent glance, left us no other care, saving to devise which was the most dramatic form of self-destruction. Rather, nevertheless,

will we resign the task of shadowing forth what may then have been the fair Saint's state of mind to one, in every way, far more competent for the office. Indeed, we would gladly borrow more largely still from her burning page, were it not so deeply inscribed in the memory of England, that detection would ever be our unfailing penalty.

"She regained her couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned, she was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. She thought sometimes she saw, beyond its wild waters, a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then, a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore her spirit triumphantly towards the bourne. But she could not reach it, even in fancy; a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove her back. Sense would resist delirium judgment would warn passion."

When the struggling day-light aroused the Saint from her fitful and agitated rest, the first more clearly defined impression which broke upon her mind, was one of unutterable joy, still mingled with the intensest apprehension. A great crisis in her life was clearly at hand, for

which the tranquil past could afford no guidance, or the storm-clad future disclose no hopeful beacon; and yet, how her heart thrilled and bounded with the new-born spirit of the hour. Then, another strange remembrance flitted across her mind. She hastily arose, ran to her looking-glass, and laughed aloud as she recognised her altered appearance. A few minutes more were absorbed in anxious prayer, then in assiduous study of the treasured lines, after which, as will often occur, alas! even in moments of the greatest exaltation, the prominent care for the day resumed its unwelcome rule. Much, nearly all that had occurred, might remain safely enshrined deep within her secret heart, but one rash, impetuous act could find no refuge there. Ere long it must be revealed; ere long, more than one hostile, sarcastic, or inquiring glance would fall upon the all evident traces of that wild deed, and the too impulsive Saint trembled and quailed already, as if every eye at Redburn were fixed, in mocking wonder, upon her truly devoted head.

What was to be done? Happily she possessed one little cap which she had worn once, during a very severe cold, and which might do

duty again for the present. But, scarcely had her toilette, with this unusual appurtenance, been concluded, than, reversing their usual practice, the fair Conny came tripping in.

"Well, dearest Cécile," exclaimed she, "what

has happened? I have been expecting you for more than ten minutes. You are quite well, I trust."

"Indeed, Conny, I am shamefully late," muttered Cécile, "but the fact is that I have a very bad cold."

"A cold, in this darling little clever head?" answered Constance, fondly embracing her cousin. But her hand having rested for an instant upon the empty cap, she started back, in horror full as great as if it had encountered the slimy, scaly back of a boa constrictor. "Your hair!" shrieked she, your glorious, beautiful hair! My dear Cécile, what have you done to it ?"

'Well, I have thinned it a little, to be sure," said the Saint, with a more composed smile.

"Thinned it! Why it is all gone, all cut off," replied Conny, gazing with undisguised anxiety fully into her cousin's countenance.

"You must be mad, stark, staring, raving mad !"

You know, dear Conny, that I have always been reckoned more or less affected in that way."

"That may be, but not to this utmost extremity; you surely must have had some sort of reason for such unheard-of folly."

'Well, dear Conny, if reason and folly are for once to be yoked together, no doubt several motives might be assigned. Perhaps my long hair was the cause of the many headaches which I have had lately; or perhaps it prevented my sleeping at night; or it might have been falling to an alarming extent; or it may have offended me, and betrayed me into various errors."

"Nonsense, nonsense," interrupted her cousin, "don't attempt to deceive Conny: you know it is of no earthly use." But, as she thus spoke, the eyes of the sapient little personage fell, for the first time, upon the votive tresses suspended, as they now were, at the foot of the crucifix. She was silent for a moment, then she waxed amazingly thoughtful, and then

again kissing her cousin, she said: