oice of
enchantment, a hissing sound escapes the lips I have worshipped. I rise,
and try to approach, but she recedes. I awake--I start from my uneasy
bed--I find this horrible picture, which bore the impress of reality, is
but a dream. I awake to the consciousness that my beloved is dead, and
that my eyes will gaze upon her beauty no more.

How few there are in this busy world who, when passing those abodes of
wretchedness--"private madhouses"--can imagine the agony, the misery,
the despair that dwells there! But to my history.

I was the only child of General Sir Frederick and Lady Charlotte B----.
I was reared in luxury; the rude air was scarcely allowed to blow upon
my delicate frame. I can remember now, though years have passed, and
sorrow has bowed me--I can remember the happy days when my wearied head
was pillowed on the bosom of my mother, and, after she had sung me to
sleep with some wild melody, she would place me in my small luxurious
cot, and watch over me with those deep-loving eyes, and be the first to
comfort and re-assure me if uneasy dreams--for even then I was a
dreamer--made me awake to sorrow. But my mother died. Even now I shudder
at the recollection of the desolateness of my agony when I knew I had
looked on her for the last time. Even now I can feel the coldness which
crept over me as I laid my cheek to hers. My blood was frozen. I could
not weep. Oh! tears would have been a relief, but they were denied me;
and though I saw her taken from my embrace, and her beloved form laid in
the vault, I could still gaze with speechless agony--but I wept not.

How I wished for the quiet of the grave; for even then there was a
whirlwind within my bosom, and my sensitive heart shrank from holding
converse with, or bestowing confidence on another as freely or
unreservedly as I had done with the dear being whom I had lost.

Shortly after this event my father was ordered upon foreign service, and
my childhood was passed among relatives who were strangers to me. It was
a childhood without love. I remembered my mother, and none could supply
her place. I could not trust in another as I had trusted in her. In my
sorrows, real or imaginary, none other could comfort me. I longed for my
childhood's resting-place, where I might again pillow my aching head,
and sleep once more the calm sleep hallowed by a mother's matchless
love.

At an early age I was sent to one of our great public schools, and
there, although I endu