found; while this intelligence seemed to increase the disorder of the unhappy Olivia, whose body, parched with fever, writhing in strong convulsions, soon became livid and discoloured. The physician shook his head, as he pronounced her malady to be beyond his art; and before the close of night, after the most violent struggles, death put a period to her sufferings. From the moment of his first witnessing her wretched condition, the Marchese had refused to enter the chamber; ever headstrong and irascible, his domestics now dared not approach him, as in the gloom of his own apartment, he seemed, with a kind of sullen frenzy, to await the fiat of some dreadful stroke, and to be revolving deeds of horror in his mind.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

In every varied posture, place and hour, How widow'd every thought of every joy !"

"Thou sound and firm-set earth,

YOUNG.

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for

fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time
Which now suits with it."

SHAKESPEARE.

DURING these events, Viola, immured in her solitary prison, dragged on the chain of many wearied days, till hope became nearly extinct, and fortitude gave way before melancholy truth and repeated disappointment

She

She was regularly attended every night by the harsh, severe Beatrice, whose stern laconic manner ever repelled the enquiry, as it rose to her lips, and checked all attempts at conversation, either by a forbidding reply, or an abrupt departure. Of Albenza she longed to hear; yet what but that he was another's, could she learn? Of Gradisca, and her nephew, amidst all her own distresses, she still felt mindful and anxious: Ah, how did she not wish to do more! how did she not wonder, that with every benevolent inclination, she should be precluded the means of gratifying them, while so many thousands vegetated in the very zenith of wealth and power, without having hearts to apply them! indigent and obscure, friendless and imprisoned, of what benefit to others, of What service to herself, were those kindly

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kindly sensibilities with which Nature had so liberally endowed her! rather, on the contrary, did they now contribute to augment the sense of her situation, and the poignancy of her misfortunes. Adjoining her apartment was a small closet, and there, amidst a heap of dirt and cobwebs, she discovered a few old books; over these she bent with a delight, which not even their torn and nearly effaced condition could alloy; and after clearing them from the dust, found one or two were legible; this appeared a mine of treasure, and she regarded the shrine of learning and genius with the devotion of a saiut; but alas! it proved not inexhaustible, and she began, finished, and began again, till the language became familiar to her ear, the thoughts wearisome to her mind: 66 What a dreadful thing is sameness and mono

tony!"

tony!" sighed Viola, opening the chamber-door to avail herself of Beatrice's permission to walk in the long gallery as it closed, the violence of the motion caused something to reverberate with a jingling noise, upon, the ground like a key: hastening to where the sound came, she soon found herself at the termination of the gallery, and by the door of that chamber where she fancied she had seen the light; that something had fallen by the mo tion of the door she was convinced; and with half repressed expectation, she groped her hands along the flooring and crevices, with which it abounded: disappointed, however, in her search, she was returning, mortified and vexed, to her lonely apartment, when, as her eye glanced upwards, she perceived a long hook, thrust into the wall, on which hung the broken, remnants of

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