ft a wake of brightness behind.

"I could not sleep. Excitement kept me wakeful and restless. I heard the
measured tread of the sentinel walking his 'lonely round,' and it did
not sound louder than the beating of my own heart. Hark! a soft, breezy
sound steals up just beneath my window. It is the vibration of the
guitar,--a deeptoned, melodious voice accompanies it. It is the voice of
St. James. He sings, and the strains fall upon the stilly night, soft as
the silver dew.

"Gabriella, I told you with my dying lips never to unseal this
manuscript till you were awakened to woman's destiny,--_love_. If you do
not sympathize with my emotions, lay it down, my child, the hour is not
yet come. If you have never heard a voice, whose faintest tones sink
into the lowest depths of your soul,--if you have never met a glance,
whose lightning rays penetrate to the innermost recesses of the heart,
reseal these pages. The feelings with which you cannot sympathize will
seem weakness and folly, and a daughter must not scorn a mother's bosom
record.

"Remember how lonely, how unfriended I was. The only eye that had beamed
on me with love was closed in death, the only living person on whom I
had any claims was cruel and unkind. Blame me not that I listened to a
stranger's accents, that I received his image into my heart, that I
enthroned it there, and paid homage to the kingly guest.

"It is in vain to linger thus. I met him again and again. I learned to
measure time and space by one line--where he _was_, and where he was
_not_. I learned to bear harshness, jeering, and wrong, because a door
of escape was opened, and the roses of paradise seemed blushing beyond.
I suffered him to be my friend--lover--husband."

I dropped the manuscript that I might clasp my hands in an ecstasy of
gratitude--

"My God,--I thank thee!" I exclaimed, sinking on my knees, and repeating
the emphatic words: "_friend--lover-husband_." "God of my mother,
forgive my dark misgivings."

Now I could look up. Now I could hold the paper with a firm hand. There
was nothing in store that I could not bear to hear, no misfortune I had
not courage to meet. Alas! alas!

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Yes," continued my mother; "we were married within heaven dedicated
walls by a man of God, and the blessing of the holy, blessed, and
glorious Trinity was pronounced upon our union. Remember this, my dearly
beloved child, remember that in the bosom of the church, surrounded by