alienate the estates, should
they come into your possession."

Nisida burst into an agony of tears and rushed from the room.

Her brother immediately followed to console her; and the company
retired, each individual to his own abode.

But of all that company who had been present at the reading of the will,
none experienced such painful emotions as Dr. Duras.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PICTURES--AGNES AND THE UNKNOWN--MYSTERY.

When Agnes awoke from the state of stupor in which she had been conveyed
from the church, she found herself lying upon an ottoman, in a large and
elegantly furnished apartment.

The room was lighted by two silver lamps suspended to the ceiling, and
which, being fed with aromatic oil of the purest quality, imparted a
delicious perfume to the atmosphere.

The walls were hung with paintings representing scenes of strange
variety and interest, and connected with lands far--far away. Thus, one
depicted a council of red men assembled around a blazing fire, on the
border of one of the great forests of North America; another showed the
interior of an Esquimaux hut amidst the eternal ice of the Pole;--a
third delineated, with fearfully graphic truth, the writhing of a human
victim in the folds of the terrific anaconda in the island of Ceylon; a
fourth exhibited a pleasing contrast to the one previously cited, by
having for its subject a family meeting of Chinese on the terraced roof
of a high functionary's palace at Perkin; a fifth represented the
splendid court of King Henry the Eighth in London; a sixth showed the
interior of the harem of the Ottoman Sultan.

But there were two portraits amongst this beautiful and varied
collection of pictures, all of which, we should observe, appeared to
have been very recently executed--two portraits which we must pause to
describe. One represented a tall man of about forty years of age, with
magnificent light hair--fine blue eyes, but terrible in expression--a
countenance indisputably handsome, though every lineament denoted horror
and alarm--and a symmetrical form, bowed by the weight of sorrow.
Beneath this portrait was the following inscription:--"F., _Count of_
A., _terminated his career on the 1st of August, 1517_."

The other portrait alluded to was that of an old--old man, who had
apparently numbered ninety winters. He was represented as cowering over
a few embers in a miserable hovel, while the most profound sorrow was
depicted on his countenance. B