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God alone; she believes the Redemption to be all efficient for her sins, and the Bible all sufficient for her instruction: and yet, she has emulated, nay, she has overcome you in your generous conflict of self-sacrifice. If there is justice in heaven, its gates will not be closed against such as her."

"Oh! do not malign me by saying that I doubt it," muttered the all-unnerved Cécile, whose tears had been flowing fast whilst the preceding explanations had been imparted to her. "I believe, I must believe, the truth to be fixed, uniform, and unchangeable; but still more firmly do I cling to the hope that God is all merciful. If I am mistaken, may He pity and spare me; if she is, thus, thus I kneel to the sanctity of her error."

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Darling Cécile, what can you mean? But all this has unhinged you a little."

"It has," faltered the still weeping Saint, "you have all been, you are all so much too kind. How can I deserve it, how can I requite it !"

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By being henceforth as happy as it is possible to be," replied Conny, embracing her

tenderly. "But, Uncle Tewkesbury, had not you and I better leave them alone now."

"Oh! one moment more, dear Conny," said Cécile, arresting her. "I had understood that Edward was in town with you: am I not to see him, to thank him too ?"

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"No," answered Conny, more gravely. will do very well, as well as I shall, I am convinced, in the end-but he would rather not meet you at present, and I agree with him. Perhaps you do not know that he has resigned his seat, and that he is going abroad so soon as we can assure him that he is no more wanted for our now happily concluded arrangements. He is a good boy, after all, and has behaved very well in all this. By the bye, I have a wedding present for you from him."

Thus speaking, the fair Constance opened a large writing-box, close at hand, and produced an écrin, bearing sundry coronets and ciphers. "Do you know this?" continued she, laughing. Every long lock and tress of a certain fugitive's hair, which we found still suspended in her room after her departure, has been saved, with the tenderest care, and committed to the

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skill of the renowned Monsieur Réséda. he who has mounted them upon all these curious clasps, springs, and double pins. With these he affirms that, after one hour's teaching, your maid will be able to secure the original hair on its original and very original little head, in such a manner as far to surpass anything that nature could achieve. Lest, however, the device should be detected in the broad daylight of the presentation, Edward has added these diamond appendages. I had not seen them since they have been mounted, and, upon my word, they are not so ugly."

"They are magnificent, dearest Connymuch too splendid for me."

"Not now, darling," replied Constance; "but I have better news for you, or rather for St. Edmunds yet. The same Monsieur Réséda informed me, yesterday evening, that within two years your own real hair will be quite itself again. He even pledges himself that, if it is not then full as long, and full as fine as ever it was before, he will publicly admit that Monsieur Jasmin's talent is superior to his own. Stop a moment," continued Conny, as she was closing the writing-box, "I had actually for

gotten this letter from my father, which you can read later at your leisure."

When opened, in due time, Sir Charles's missive was found to contain, besides many kind and truly paternal congratulations, the information that, with Edward's full assent, an annuity of three hundred pounds a-year was settled upon the future Lady St. Edmunds.

"But Lady Helen," whispered Cécile, not without a slight tremor, as Constance and her uncle were retiring, "will she ever see me again?"

"Oh! certainly, dear, as often as you like," answered Conny. "It is all right again now, though, perhaps, at first, she was a little disappointed, to be sure-but mostly, be it whispered, through her own fault. Don't you agree, Uncle Tewkesbury?"

"Yes; Helen neglected a great truth. In singling you out as a victim, Cécile, she impassioned, in your behalf, the sympathies of the indifferent and of the impartial. She had forgotten that, if religious persecution is impossible to all now, religious vexation equally defeats its own end. We are free, I firmly believe, widely to differ from you, but we may

not revile you with impunity. You are too illustrious in history, too great in civilized

Europe, too important, as yet at least, in Christendom.

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