he very home and
hold of her false friends and real foes; while in the contradictions
of the same passion, Isabel, so far from exulting at her approaching
escape, trembled at her danger and blushed for her temerity; and the
fear and the modesty of woman almost triumphed over her brief energy and
fluctuating resolve.

CHAPTER XXVII.

We haste,-the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy, within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth.--Mrs. HEMANS.

"Damn it!" said the General.

"The vile creature!" cried Miss Diana.

"I don't understand things of that sort," ejaculated the bewildered Mr.
Glumford.

"She has certainly gone," said the valiant General.

"Certainly!" grunted Miss Diana.

"Gone!" echoed the bridegroom not to be.

And she was gone! Never did more loving and tender heart forsake all,
and cling to a more loyal and generous nature. The skies were darkened
with clouds,--

"And the dim stars rushed through them rare and fast;"

and the winds wailed with a loud and ominous voice; and the moon came
forth, with a faint and sickly smile, from her chamber in the mist, and
then shrank back, and was seen no more; but neither omen nor fear was
upon Mordaunt's breast, as it swelled beneath the dark locks of Isabel,
which were pressed against it.

As Faith clings the more to the cross of life, while the wastes deepen
around her steps, and the adders creep forth upon her path, so love
clasps that which is its hope and comfort the closer, for the desert
which encompasses and the dangers which harass its way.

They had fled to London, and Isabel had been placed with a very distant
and very poor, though very high-born, relative of Algernon, till the
necessary preliminaries could be passed and the final bond knit. Yet
still the generous Isabel would have refused, despite the injury to
her own fame, to have ratified a union which filled her with gloomy
presentiments for Mordaunt's fate; and still Mordaunt by little and
little broke down her tender scruples and self-immolating resolves, and
ceased not his eloquence and his suit till the day of his nuptials was
set and come.

The morning was bright and clear; the autumn was drawing towards its
close, and seemed willing to leave its last remembrance tinged with the
warmth and softness of its parent summer, rather than with the stern
gloom and severity of it