and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Strange, for a woman and a widow, it was the first time that he had seen her shed such. What must be the force of that grief which thus utterly subdued one so proud, and so self-controlled! Norbourne carried rather than led her to a seat; and, lavishing upon her every tender and soothing epithet, implored her to tell him the worst. He was struck to see how she mastered herself. The sobs were swallowed down, the tears dashed aside; and, with one kindly pressure of the hand, she went to the inner room, saying, in a low but unbroken voice,—"In five minutes, my child."
Norbourne was left alone, and, insensibly, his eye was caught by the gloomy appearance of the room. The black hangings yet remained that had been put up at his father's death, but they were faded and somewhat torn. There was no carpet on the black oak floor, through whose crevices the wind came with that dreary sound which seems peculiar to it when it enters the dwelling of man. The
