herself, while the earl, still for another moment, remained immoveable.

At length he advanced, and stretching out his arms to catch the now almost insensible female, he exclaimed, "Bianca, my own dear lost Bianca!"

It was indeed Bianca di Lorigni, to whom, nearly twenty years before, he had vowed eternal fidelity, and whom he had so cruelly deserted.

It is impossible to give an accurate account of the affecting scene that followed; let it suffice that the penitent earl had the entire forgiveness of the gentle Bianca.

She, at his earnest request, related all that had passed during their long separation. She had too much generosity and delicacy to dwell on the agony she had endured, when fully convinced that he had left her for ever, or on the deprivations her father and herself had been subject to after the death of their kind protector and relative, the good Baron Lindenhock.

Both

That event took place a year after the departure of her false lover; and three years after that she had, at the earnest entreaty of her father, accepted the hand of Baron Kreuznach, who was some years older than herself. he and her father had been dead many years, ten of which she had passed in England, but during all that time she had never once set her eyes upon her first lover, as, knowing he was married, she thought it better not to renew their acquaintance.

"And now," said she, "how did you find me out? or was it accident that brought you here?"

This question recalled to the earl's recollection the detestable errand which brought him to the house, and the very idea of conversing with the vulgar Cooksons, after listening to the sweet Italian of the beautiful and accomplished Bianca, quite upset him. He, however, at length confessed the whole affair to his newfound friend.

"Surely," she said, "you would not act the

part which you have blamed so much in your own father?"

The earl looked confused, but answered, "You would not surely compare a connexion with those plebeians to one with-your own dear self," he would have added, but he checked himself.

"Ah! Bianca, had you but a daughter, with what ecstacy would I bestow my darling son, and all I possess, upon her."

"What!" (exclaimed she,) "if she were as her mother was, a beggar, a papist, and a foreigner?"

"Yes, all,” he eagerly added. "The poorer she was the better pleased I should be, as then I could the better prove the sincerity of my repentance for my shameful conduct towards her exemplary and forgiving mother."

Bianca was silent for a few minutes, overcome by her emotions; at last, recovering herself, she said, "I have a daughter, a dear affectionate child, but I would not bestow her even upon your son, if I thought his affections were already another's."

"Oh, let me see her, let me see her," exclaimed the earl in great agitation.

Bianca rang the bell, a female servant appeared, whom she desired (in Italian) to bring her daughter.

66

You have forgotten my faithful Lauretta, I perceive," she said, as the woman left the "She is then more altered than I am,

room.

for

you remembered me at once.”

"Remembered you Bianca, ah, how could I ever forget you?"

As he spoke the door opened, and a lovely girl entered, the counterpart of what her mother had been twenty years before. That mother was, however, so little altered, that as the earl gazed from one to the other, he could scarcely believe but that they were sisters.

He pressed the gentle girl in his arms, while he gave her the kiss of an affectionate father. He addressed her, as he had hitherto done her mother, in Italian, for he had remembered that when the latter and he parted, she could only speak that charming language.

After a little conversation, Bianca dismissed

her daughter, and then addressed the earl as follows-in English.

"If you knew the joy I feel in being able to set your heart at ease on a subject that seems so much to distress you, you would readily believe that I feel the same interest in your happiness that I ever did. There are no such persons as Mrs. and Miss Cookson.

"My dear little girl and myself assumed those names when we came to England ten years ago, as I wished to live in utter privacy. Neither are we poor, nor papists. My kind husband left me, for my life, the castle and estates of Kreuznach, to go at my death to our daughter, with earnest entreaties that I would allow her to be brought up in his own (the Lutheran) persuasion. This I faithfully promised and performed, and in listening to the clear truths which fell from the lips of my child's excellent pastor, my own eyes were opened to the deformity of popery.

"Finding it very unpleasant, and indeed unsafe, to live alone in the desolate castle of

VOL. I.

M