er
intervals; till the faint shuddering of her limbs ceased by degrees,
and after it had been insensible to the world for a while, the spirit
quitted it for ever. Ellen's heart died within her; her senses were
troubled, and she pressed herself in Paulett's arms without knowing when
he came, or being surprised that he was there. "Oh, Paulett!" she said
at last, "I have not done wrong, but it is so dreadful!" Paulett soon
gathered from her all that had happened; and gazed with pity on what had
once been a beautiful form, but rejoiced that it suffered no longer.
Ellen, shuddering, arranged the dress, composed the limbs, and, with a
thousand tears, placed the infant on that breast which had been so
faithfully its mother to the last. And there they slept, mother and
child--the day of trouble ended for both.

"My poor Ellen," said Paulett, "I wish it were thou and my children who
were there at rest!" and Ellen pressed her Charles and her Alice to her
heart, and would have been glad if they had indeed been dead.

CHAPTER IV.

In that time of trouble and of unexampled events, the mind received
impressions in a different manner from what it had ever done before. The
stern gloom that hung over the future, the hazard upon which life was
suspended, the close contact with universal death, and the desperate
struggle by which it was staved off, gave to all things a new character;
and the scene of the last chapter was but one of the series of deadly
and dreadful excitements which were now the habit of every day. The
solemn frame of mind which it induced in Ellen, was of a piece with the
solemn nature of their existence; and she could talk of it with her
husband at any time, and not disturb the natural bent which their
conversation took. They searched the immediate neighbourhood for the
habitation of the unhappy mother and her family; and the marks of her
footsteps on the dust of the soil enabled them to trace her to Hope, a
village in the plain, two miles, or rather more, from the Peak. She and
her husband had used the church for their habitation, and it seemed had
employed the same kind of precaution as Paulett to defend it and conceal
that it was their dwelling. One entrance only was left, and the other
apertures blocked up; but all care was useless now, for death had set
them free from pain and fear. On a bed beside the altar lay the body of
a man, over which as spread a cloak of fur and velvet, which in the
lifetime of the wor