adjoining the Countess's chamber, she was informed by Agatha, whom, with Father Bertrand, she found there, that soon after she had left the Countess, she had had a fit of the most alarming nature. "I directly called the surgeon (proceeded Agatha), and he sat with her the remainder of the night, during which she had many returns of it: he has already dressed her wound, being under a necessity of departing at an early hour, and he says it bears a much more dangerous appearance than it did at first. Her fever too is augmented; but he dreads nothing so much as a return of the fits, which, in her present exhausted state, are, he says, enough to kill her."
"Oh! why, why (cried Madeline, whose agonies, at hearing this melancholy account, were inexpressible), why was I not called when so dreadful a change took place?"
"At first we were really too much confused to think about you (said Agatha); and when my Lady recovered, and we would
