certain persons and things which she had beheld. in childhood. She remembered travelling in a wood, but whether under the care of a nurse or of her mother, she could not recollect. She had an impression-it was a terrific one-upon her mind, respecting armed men, and swords, and violence, and screams, and of some who came to her rescue. She remembered having always been in the habit of seeing castles, and court yards, and halls, and knights, and dames; but whether these buildings were larger or smaller in dimension-whether they were more superb or less so than the one she had since inhabited -whether the knights and their retainers who filled them were greater or more few in number

-or whether she herself were considered as a child of the house, or only as an inmate of it, she could by no means assure herself.

To say that she had resolved to quit the habitation of her early and kind protector, with a direct formal design of seeking out her own parents, would be accusing her of far too fond imaginings, and be asserting her to possess a romantic disposition without one particle of

reason to govern or direct it. Yet may one, without any very great stretch of imagination, suppose her not to have been without a hope, that in the course of her wanderings, chance might direct her to some clue, by following which, she would arrive at the discovery of her father's station in life, perhaps even to a knowledge of her father himself, if indeed he haply were still in existence.

CHAPTER XIII.

EMILY being thus equipped for her travels, drew the sheets from off the bed, then knotting them together, and firmly attaching one end to a strong oaken pilaster, which served to support the ceiling of the chamber, flung the other on the outside of the lattice. Having thus prepared the means of escape, she mounted upon a bench, and leaning over the balustrade, so as to enable herself to take the first step without reeeiving too great a jerk, clung closely to the rope, and began slowly to descend to the ground, which she shortly reached in safety.

She no sooner found herself upon her feet in the garden, than a fear arose respecting her being able to escape from it.

The gate leading into the street was not always, as she knew, closed at night, yet it was so sometimes, and might be at that time. With a palpitating heart she approached, and attempted to lift the latch.-It resisted the effort.-She was entrapped!--What could she do? To return was impossible-to remain, full of danger.— What would her parents, for so was she accustomed to call de Bavay and his dame, say to her, for having thus attempted to withdraw from their protection?-Again she strove to open it, still was her strength unequal to the task. Sick with terror, she seated herself on the turf to reflect upon the peril of her situation, and devise means of escaping from it-none presented themselves. A thought struck her, had not the disturbance of her mind enervated, and thus rendered her unable to open the gate?-It might be so. With a trepidation arising from the mixed feeling of fear and hope, she arose, determining to make one more desperate effort to lift the latch. She applied her whole strengthfor the first time it seemed rather to give way—

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she continued the exertion,-the door yielded to it, and flew open.

In order to defend its wood work from the rain, the gate had lately been smeared with tar, which, having got dry, occasioned the latch to stick to the staple. This difficulty overcome, she listened a few minutes, standing with the gate ajar in her hand, to assure herself that there was no one on the outside, who, seeing her leave the garden at that late hour, might give the alarm.-All was still; so gently closing the door behind her, she stepped forth into the town. Here, in some obscure corner, she intended to conceal herself until morning, when, the gates being opened at an early hour, she would be able to pass them unnoticed, and pursue her journey before her absence was discovered.

In traversing the town, for the purpose of finding some safe spot to rest in, it so chanced, that the confusion into which the late events had plunged her mind, caused her to mistake the way, and she, unawares, found herself opposite to an old delapidated tower, flanking a castle