in

better. It tells me of a friend, a great | blossom and send their perfume forth and loving friend, and of his tender care incense to the praise of the Most High." for all. That little book was my comfort He could refuse her nothing. So the my former dreary life. In every sorrow book was hers, but he would not read I could turn for solace there; in every sin that one with her. Time walked on in seek there a way of egress from it. O his steady course, and Leoline had grown my best friend! you will not keep that to womanhood. She was the bright star book from Leoline? Men call it by a high of the palace - the pure diamond of its name, The Word of God.' Such is its life. Men marveled at the magic beauty title, for 'twas dictated to holy men by of her face and form, until they knew her Him." mind; then they forgot her mere external grace for that far greater, which gave such lustre to her thoughts and words. But when they looked still deeper, and read her heart, with its Heaven-bound thoughts and feelings, its love and pity, kindness-warmth for human nature in its every mood then they forgot her beauty and her intellect, and learnt to love her for her gentle nature.

The Duke looked grave.

"Wherefore would you con it now, Leoline ?" he asked, "remembering what it holds so well. "Better read something new. You have Ovid, Plato-works from the pens of sages of the ancient days, and from the modern world. I have culled the choicest literature for you; for the lighter moments I have provided tales of fiction."

"That was no tale of fiction," she answered.

"Then, here are histories," he continued; "Truth's stories- lives of worthy men, and others-will not these serve thy

The trembling Leoline answered: "God in that book has told me otherwise, and I dare not disbelieve. He has bid me bind its precepts on my heart, and take them to me as my guide through life. Lord Rudolph, I know not the distinctions of the Church. God is my teacher--he alone. I would not give the power of God to man; and, in place of his great word, listen to the teaching of a priest. Good my lord, seek for Leoline that wondrous book, or she will pine, and droop, and die, and fade away, that she has it not. Some call it by another name-the Book of Life. It was life and hope and strength to me-will be again. Its words will fall on my drooping spirit like gentle rain on budding flowers, and water them to life, and strength, and vigor, and they will

And she became the habit of his life to Rudolph. Her mind had ripened under his care-even the lighter pastimes of art she had learnt through him. Music seemed but an inspiration of her nature, and the limner's art but another phase of it. Scenes of rare beauty grew beneath her pencil· scenes of a world of spirits, where angel-beings of dazzling brightness seemed to smile on her. And sometimes she would place her own and Rudolph's semblance among them; but their forms were but like blots, marring the brightness of the whole.

In the banquet hall, when words of courtesy ran round, and strains of martial music, and perchance the gay laugh and jest which, erewhile, he might have joined in he now sat mute. And wise men, or those who so judged themselves, said that a change had come o'er Rudolph

that he was grave beyond his years, and thoughtful; and they applauded him, and declared that he had eschewed the pardonable giddiness of youth-its vanity and folly.

They could not see beyond the surface, or they would not have spoken thus. They could not discover that folly, (for sin is folly,) which had turned parricide, and swallowed those from whom it had

drawn birth. Under that thoughtful brow there dwelt the image of Leoline, speaking to him with a potent voice, clinging to him with a grasp he could not break. They- those sages, who arrogated to themselves the power of judgment, could not scan the leaning of the inner soul-could not behold the love for Leoline coloring every landscape of his life.

But there was one who wept and read the truth-who felt the unseen guilt which escaped the world's notice; who read in the altered mien, the amended life, (as the world judged,) a deeper ill than the mere fleeting heedlessness of a passing moment. The Duchess wept as she marked the change in Rudolph, and she clearly saw the wandering of the sinful soul. Yet sometimes she deemed it but her suspicious fancy, and then again suspicion would become almost certainty-then, in its turn, certainty fade into suspicion. But the Duchess loved Leoline; she would not have marred the angelic innocence of her mind by uttering to her what she thought.

faded mass at the feet of Leoline. Then she wept, for it had been a favorite, and her tears fell like dew-drops on the withered leaves. "Poor blossom," she murmured, "I have killed thee by my very love for thee: better had I left thee in thy shady bed, than brought thee into this glowing splendor."

"And can you mourn a flower, sweet one," said Rudolph, for he was by her side, "when I am near? Nay, look on me, and I will kiss those truant tears away. I will not have them flow, dear Leoline, for the absence of any but myself."

She raised her head, and looked at him wondering, for of late there had been a strange tone in his words, one which she could not understand; but she was willing not to understand it. The face she looked at was the same as that which had saved her on the desolate heath. The words she heard were from the lips which then had bid her trust in him who spoke to her. And she remembered thisthought on all he had been to her—all the kindness he had shown her--and then she was content; and he would again speak of the flower.

Leoline," he whispered, "that flower deserved to die; its cold and chilly nature could not bear the sun's golden warmth, and it was drooping even in its shady bed."

There was a homily in her words for him, if he would but have read them.

"Poor dear," she said, as sorrowfully she marked her; "poor darling, she is unconscious of all harm. If sin has grown, unwittingly alone has she nourished it." And then the weeping Duchess lifted up her heart in prayer, that Leoline might still be kept both pure and innocent. "Drooping, but not dead," she anAnd the prayer was heard and answered. "Now it is scorched and killed, swered, and ofttimes angels placed a by my unwise kindness." thought of one pale, sad face between the Duke and Leoline, which made him pause in some honeyed word or tone of endearment, and a pang would then shoot through his heart-a consciousness that all was not right there. But he would cast the consciousness away from him, and turn again and smile on Leoline. There were other warnings given, but he was blind to all, although at times a power invisible seemed to make Leoline speak words of strange meaning to him-speak them spite almost of herself.

Again, among her other pets she had a bird-a tiny creature, with plumage like the ruby and the emerald. It was of fairy form-so beautiful; and its gentle song fell on the ear like liquid notes of fairy music. And it would raise its head and look at Leoline, and flap its little wings, and sing to her, and watch her as she moved, and seemed to live and be and carol forth its lay for her alone. But the bird sickened, A film came over its once bright eyes, its wings were drooping, and its voice was mute. Then, as Leoline watched her dying favorite, she sobbed in grief and murmured sadly: "Alas! dear little one, thy short-lived time is o'er, and thy glad song hushed forever. 'Twas thy golden prison killed thee, bird, though thou didst sing so blithely in it; hadst thou been in thine own green woods, thou hadst lived yet. Alas! alas! poor bird."

Thus Rudolph found her, and he placed | temptation in her way, they tried to fill his arm around her, and bade her think of her mind with sophistry, tried to blind her none but him, and love him more dearly to the truth of God's own law and will. than any thing besides. And again she But a prayer was wafted to her soul, and was startled at his words and tone; but a thought to her failing heart. "I am she remembered that he was Duke Ru- weak and ignorant," she felt, "I do susdolph, who had sworn to be a brother to pect me of great sin somewhere, and yet her. I can not place my finger on it and say: 'Here rests the blot. Lord look in thy mercy down on Leoline, and mould her to thy will! Give her thy strength and make it perfect in her weakness!" "

"It is not the fate of any earthly love to last forever, Leoline," he said; "be comforted, thy favorite was happy while it lived; you knew not that its glittering cage would play so cruel a part, sapping the life drop by drop. Alas! my rose-bud, often do we destroy because we love not wisely but too well." He should have read that lesson to himself.

Now the soul of Leoline was rent with the torture of conflicting thoughts. Like a tossed boat she swam the stream of life, now here, now there, rising one moment over the crested billow, then sinking as if to meet destruction in the foam, first in the sunshine basking happily, then in the shadow of the treacherous rocks, and then again urged by the current towards the eddying whirlpool, turned thence by a power other than her own; so she went on.

But the struggle told sadly on her. Her eye was dim with grief, her cheek pale from the same sad cause, and her steps faltered as she walked along. Her books were laid aside, all save one, that was always with her. Her song was mute. She was at times too weak for song; and, when it was not so, music made her sad, for he would gaze upon her as she sang, and he would look sadness itself-and therefore she became so.

Among the nobles who were at the court of Rudolph, there was one who loved the gentle Leoline, and he craved her hand from the Duke.

These were warnings scattered in the path of Rudolph and Leoline--scattered but fruitlessly, unheeded, looked on as simply adventitious circumstances of a life. Thus life progressed with both, a web was weaving round the life of each, habit laying thread by thread, strengthening the fabric of the whole. But the mandate came from heaven to those good spirits who wandered round the path of Leoline, and bade them guard her. And into her heart they wafted searching thoughts, and doubts, and questions. A speck appeared проп the disc of her life's sun, and marred its brightness, and cast its shadow on her path. She had a feeling, a consciousness scarcely grown to thoughts of something being wrong, strangely amiss, a note of discord, a false tone in the melody of her life, and as this feeling grew each day in deep intensity and strength, the thought of Rudolph mingled with it. Now, did he take her hand and clasp it in his own, she was either heedless of the fact, from her mind wandering in the chaos of evil from . whence had sprung her new-formed fear, or she would start and take it from him-yet lack the will to say, "It may not be." And then again she reproached herself for There was that day a banquet in the her fitful mood, resulting from unmoulded palace, and with bursting heart Rudolph fancy, and she would rise and ask him to took his place among his noble guests. forgive her, and tell him that she grieved The Duchess marked the crimson spot to vex him, for she saw that it did vex him, upon each cheek, the flashing of the restand pray him not to heed her in her fol-less eye, the sharp retort, the sudden silies. Then again would come the haunt-lence-and she read the cause of all. ing thought of something out of joint-a broken limb of time-which made all time go halt and lame with her.

There was a deadly conflict raging for the soul of Leoline, and contending spirits struggled for the prize. Satan's emissaries crawled around her, they placed

With changing brow, and troubled eye, and heaving breast he heard him. "We will give your wish our calm consideration, my young lord," the Duke answered. "By this day week, we will tell you whether we give you the hand of the daughter of the house of Reizenstein."

Leoline had sought to be alone, to keep from the scene of feasting, and her request was granted.

"As you will, poor drooping lily," so the Duchess said, "do as you will, pale flower, the rose has died upon thy cheek, and thy sweet lips look wan. Leoline, my

fortune, has craved the hand of Leoline. | she saw them not; naught was she conSpeak, maiden, and say if thou canst love him. Leoline-dally not with thine answer! My whole soul lies wrapped in it. Quickly tell me if thou hast given thy heart away." The wild blood chased with mad speed through his veins-his eyes gleamed with eager brightness-his whole frame teemed with fierce anxiety.