wind, and cluster under the trees, that sent forth
with their wailing branches sounds scarcely less dolorous and wild.
Avoiding the woods, and striking into the most open part of the country,
Ferdinand watched the progress of the tempest.

For the wind had now risen to such a height that the leaves and branches
of the trees were carried about in vast whirls and eddies, while the
waters of the lake, where in serener hours Ferdinand was accustomed
to bathe, were lifted out of their bed, and inundated the neighbouring
settlements. Lights were now seen moving in the cottages, and then the
forked lightning, pouring down at the same time from opposite quarters
of the sky, exposed with an awful distinctness, and a fearful splendour,
the wide-spreading scene of danger and devastation.

Now descended the rain in such overwhelming torrents, that it was as
if a waterspout had burst, and Ferdinand gasped for breath beneath its
oppressive power; while the blaze of the variegated lightning, the
crash of the thunder, and the roar of the wind, all simultaneously
in movement, indicated the fulness of the storm. Succeeded then that
strange lull that occurs in the heart of a tempest, when the unruly
and disordered elements pause, as it were, for breath, and seem to
concentrate their energies for an increased and final explosion. It
came at last; and the very earth seemed to rock in the passage of the
hurricane.

Exposed to all the awful chances of the storm, one solitary being alone
beheld them without terror. The mind of Ferdinand Armine grew calm,
as nature became more disturbed. He moralised amid the whirlwind.
He contrasted the present tumult and distraction with the sweet and
beautiful serenity which the same scene had presented when, a short time
back, he first beheld it. His love, too, had commenced in stillness and
in sunshine; was it, also, to end in storm and in destruction?

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

_Which Contains a Love-Letter_.

LET us pause. We have endeavoured to trace, in the preceding portion
of this history, the development of that passion which is at once the
principle and end of our existence; that passion compared to whose
delights all the other gratifications of our nature--wealth, and power,
and fame, sink into insignificance; and which, nevertheless, by the
ineffable beneficence of our Creator, is open to his creatures of all
conditions, qualities, and climes. Whatever be the lot of man, howe