of us, but is roaming the world, and I a desolate broken-hearted mother.
There, do not cry, my girl, I do ill to speak harsh to you. But oh,
Kate! you know not what passes in a mother's heart. I bear up before
you all; it behoves me swallow my fears; but at night I see him in my
dreams, and still some trouble or other near him: sometimes he is torn
by wild beasts; other times he is in the hands of robbers, and their
cruel knives uplifted to strike his poor pale face, that one should
think would move a stone. Oh! when I remember that, while I sit here
in comfort, perhaps my poor boy lies dead in some savage place, and all
along of that girl: there, her very name is ratsbane to me. I tremble
all over when I hear it."

"I'll not say anything, nor do anything to grieve you worse, mother,"
said Kate tenderly; but she sighed.

She whose name was so fiercely interdicted in this house was much spoken
of, and even pitied elsewhere. All Sevenbergen was sorry for her, and
the young men and maidens cast many a pitying glance, as they passed, at
the little window where the beauty of the village lay "dying for love."
In this familiar phrase they underrated her spirit and unselfishness.
Gerard was not dead, and she was too loyal herself to doubt his
constancy. Her father was dear to her and helpless; and but for bodily
weakness, all her love for Gerard would not have kept her from doing
her duties, though she might have gone about them with drooping head and
heavy heart. But physical and mental excitement had brought on an attack
of fever so violent, that nothing but youth and constitution saved
her. The malady left her at last, but in that terrible state of bodily
weakness in which the patient feels life a burden.

Then it is that love and friendship by the bedside are mortal angels
with comfort in their voice, and healing in their palms.

But this poor girl had to come back to life and vigour how she could.
Many days she lay alone, and the heavy hours rolled like leaden waves
over her. In her enfeebled state existence seemed a burden, and life a
thing gone by. She could not try her best to get well. Gerard was gone.
She had not him to get well for. Often she lay for hours quite still,
with the tears welling gently out of her eyes.

One day, waking from an uneasy slumber, she found two women in her room,
One was a servant, the other by the deep fur on her collar and sleeves
was a person of consideration: a narrow band of silvery