k your hand?"

More and more dismayed at her collected manner, the young officer gazed
at her with the deepest sorrow depicted in every line of his own
countenance. He extended his hand, and Clara, to his surprise, grasped
and pressed it firmly.

"It was the wish of this poor boy that his Clara should be the wife of
his friend, Sir Everard. Did he ever express such to you?"

"It was the fondest desire of his heart," returned the baronet, unable
to restrain the emotion of joy that mingled, despite of himself, with
his worst apprehensions.

"I need not ask how you received his proposal," continued Clara, with
the same calmness of manner. "Last night," she pursued solemnly, "I was
the bride of the murderer of my brother, of the lover of my
mother,--tomorrow night I may be the bride of death; but to-night I am
the bride of my brother's friend. Yes, here am I come to pledge myself
to the fulfilment of his wish. If you deem a heart-broken girl not
unworthy of you, I am your wife, Sir Everard; and, recollect, it is a
solemn pledge, that which a sister gives over the lifeless body of a
brother, beloved as this has been."

"Oh, Clara--dearest Clara," passionately exclaimed the excited young
man, "if a life devoted to your happiness can repay you for this, count
upon it as you would upon your eternal salvation. In you will I love
both my friend and the sister he has bequeathed to me. Clara, my
betrothed wife, summon all the energies of your nature to sustain this
cruel shock; and exert yourself for him who will be to you both a
brother and a husband."

As he spoke he drew the unresisting girl towards him, and, locking her
in his embrace, pressed, for the first time, the lips, which it had
maddened him the preceding night to see polluted by the forcible kisses
of Wacousta. But Clara shared not, but merely suffered his momentary
happiness. Her cheek wore not the crimson of excitement, neither were
her tears discontinued. She seemed as one who mechanically submitted to
what she had no power of resistance to oppose; and even in the embrace
of her affianced husband, she exhibited the same deathlike calm that
had startled him at her first appearance. Religion could not hallow a
purer feeling than that which had impelled the action of the young
officer. The very consciousness of the sacred pledge having been
exchanged over the corpse of his friend, imparted a holiness of fervour
to his mind; and even while he pressed her, whom he