As he spoke thus, Marcus, raising his arm, showed Consuelo the door of the temple, above which the three sacramental words-Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-were written in letters of fire.

Consuelo, physically weakened and overcome, lived no longer but in spirit. She had been unable to listen, standing, to the discourse of Marcus obliged to seat herself on the shaft of a column, she leaned on Liverani, but without seeing, without thinking of him. Nevertheless, she had not lost a single word of the initiator. Pale as a spectre, her eyes fixed, her voice feeble, she had not that bewildered air which succeeds a nervous crisis. A concentrated enthusiasm filled her breast, whose feeble breathing was no longer perceptible to Liverani. Her black eyes, which fatigue and suffering had somewhat deepened, burned with a dark fire. A slight frown on the brow betrayed an immovable resolution, the first of her life. Her beauty at that moment filled those assistants with terror who had hitherto seen her invariably gentle and benevolent. Liverani trembled like the jasmine-leaf which the night air agitated on the brow of his beloved. She rose with greater strength than he could have expected; but her knees quickly failed her, and, to ascend the steps, she allowed herself to be almost carried by him, without the pressure of his arms, which once had so moved her, or the contact of his heart with hers, distracting her for a moment from her inward meditation. He placed between his hand and that of Consuelo the silver cross, that talisman which invested him with rights over her, and which served to make him known. But Consuelo appeared neither to recognise the gage nor the hand which presented it. Hers was contracted by suffering; its pressure was mechanical, as when one seizes a branch to save oneself upon the brink of an abyss; but the heart's blood did not reach that frozen hand.

"Marcus!" said Liverani, in a low voice, as the latter was passing him to knock at the door of the temple, "do not leave us. The trial has been too great: I am terrified."

"She loves you," replied Marcus.

"Yes; but she may perhaps die !" returned Liverani, shuddering.

Marcus struck three times on the door, which opened, and shut again as soon as he had entered with Consuelo and Liverani. The rest of the brethren remained beneath the peristyle, waiting to be introduced for the ceremony of the initiation; for, between this initiation and the final trials, there was always a private conversation between the invisible chiefs and the candidate.

The interior of the pavilion, which served as a temple on the occasion of these initiations, in the Château de ***, was magnificently ornamented, and decorated between each column with statues of the greatest friends of humanity that of Jesus Christ was placed in the midst of the amphitheatre, between those of Pythagoras and Plato; Apollonius Thyaneus was by the side of St. John; Abelard by that of St. Bernard; John Huss and Jerome of Prague by the side of St. Catherine and Joan of Arc. But Consuelo did not pause to consider exterior objects. Wholly engrossed with herself, she saw without surprise or emotion those same judges who had so deeply sounded her heart. She no longer felt any trouble in the presence of those men, whoever they might be, and awaited their sentence with apparent calmness.

The eighth personage, who, seated below the seven judges, always

spoke for them, now said to Marcus, "Brother Introducer, what person is it you bring hither? What is her name?"

"Consuelo Porporina," replied Marcus.

"That is not what you are asked, my brother," replied Consuelo. "Do you not see that I am here in the dress of a bride, and not of a widow? Announce the Countess Albert de Rudolstadt."

"My daughter," said the brother-orator, "I speak to you in the name of the council. You no longer bear the name you have invoked; your marriage with the Count de Rudolstadt is broken."

"By what right, and in virtue of what authority ?" asked Consuelo, in a strong abrupt voice, like that of a person in fever. "I recognise no theocratic power. You have yourselves taught me to recognise no other rights than those I freely accord you, and to submit myself only to a paternal authority. Yours will not be such if you break my marriage without the consent of my husband and myself. This right neither he nor I have given you."

"You are deceived," my daughter. "Albert has given us the right to dispose of your fate and his; you also have given us this right by opening to us your heart, and confessing your love for another."

"I have confessed nothing to you," replied Consuelo; “and I deny the confession you would extract from me."

"Introduce the sibyl," said the orator to Marcus.

A woman of tall stature, clothed in white, with her face concealed beneath a veil, entered, and seated herself in the centre of the half circle formed by the judges.

By her nervous trembling, Consuelo recognised Wanda.

"Speak, Priestess of Truth!" said the orator; "speak, interpreter and revealer of the most private secrets, of the most delicate emotions of the heart. Is this woman the wife of Albert de Rudolstadt?"

"She is his true and faithful wife," replied Wanda; "but at this moment you ought to pronounce her divorce. You see by whom she is conducted hither; you see that he of our children whose hand she holds is the man whom she loves and to whom she ought to belong, in virtue of the imprescriptible right of love, in marriage."

Consuelo turned with surprise towards Liverani, and looked at her own hand, which lay, as it were stiff and dead, in his. She appeared to be under the influence of a dream, and making efforts to awake. At last she withdrew herself energetically from this clasp, and, looking at the palm of her hand, saw the impression of her mother's cross.

"This, then, is the man whom I have loved!" said she, with the melancholy smile of a holy ingenuousness. Yes! I have loved him tenderly, madly; but it was a dream! I thought that Albert was no more, and you told me that this man was worthy of my esteem and confidence. Then I saw Albert; and I thought I understood, from his language, that he no longer desired to be my husband, and I did not defend myself from loving this unknown, whose letters and cares intoxicated me. But they tell me that Albert has always loved me, and that he renounced me from virtue and generosity. And why, then, did Albert persuade himself that I should yield to him in devotion? Of what criminal action have I hitherto been guilty, that I should be believed capable of breaking his heart by accepting a selfish happiness? No; I will never sully

myself with such a crime. If Albert deems me unworthy of him because I have cherished another love in my heart; if he scruples to break this love, and does not desire to inspire a nobler, I will submit to his decree; I will accept this sentence of divorce, against which my heart and conscience nevertheless revolt; but I will neither be the wife nor the lover of another. Adieu, Liverani, or whoever you may be, to whom I confided the cross of my mother in a day of abandonment, which leaves me neither shame nor remorse. Restore me this pledge, that there may be nothing

between us but a remembrance of mutual esteem, and the consciousness of a duty accomplished without effort or bitterness."

"We do not recognise such a morality, you know this," returned the sibyl. "We do not accept such sacrifices; we would consecrate and sanctify love, lost and profaned in the world, the free choice of the heart, the holy and voluntary union of two mutually loving beings; we have over our children the right of correcting their consciences, of remitting their faults, of assorting their sympathies, of breaking the shackles of society. You have not then the right to dispose of your being for a sacrifice; you cannot stifle love in your bosom and deny the truth of your confession, without being authorised so to do by us.'

66

Why speak to me of liberty?-why speak of love and happiness ?" cried Consuelo, making a step towards the judges, with a burst of enthusiasm and a sublime expression of face. "Have you not just caused me to pass through trials which should leave on the brow an eternal paleness, and in the soul an invincible austerity? For what an insensible and cowardly creature do you take me, if you judge me still capable of dreaming of and seeking for personal satisfaction after what I have seen, after what I have understood, after what I know henceforth of the life of man, and of my own duties in this world? No, no! no more of love-no more of marriage-no more of liberty, happiness, glory, art for me, if I must cause the humblest of my fellow-beings to suffer. And is it not proved that all joy is purchased in this world at the price of the joy of some one else? Is there not something better to be done than to seek self-content? Does not Albert think thus; and have not I the right to think like him? Does he not hope to find, even in his sacrifice, the strength to labour for humanity with more ardour and intelligence than ever? Let me be as great as Albert: let me fly from the false and criminal illusion of happiness. Give me work, fatigue, grief, enthusiasm! I no longer understand joy but in suffering; I thirst for martyrdom, since you have imprudently caused me to see the trophies of torture. Oh! shame to those who have understood duty, and who yet care to partake of happiness or repose upon earth! Oh, Liverani! if you love me with passion after having endured the trials which have brought me hither, you are mad; you are but a child, unworthy of the name of man-unworthy, certainly, that I should sacrifice to you the heroic affection of Albert. And you, Albert, if you are here-if you hear me, you ought not, at least, to refuse to call me your sister, to stretch out your hand to me, and assist me to walk in the rough path which is leading you to God."

The enthusiasm of Consuelo was at its height: words no longer sufficed for expression. A sort of vertigo seized her; and, as the Pythonesses of old, in the paroxysm of their divine crises, gave way to cries and strange

furies, so was she led to manifest the emotion which overwhelmed her by the expression most natural to her. She commenced singing in a loud voice, and in a transport at least equal to that she had experienced while singing the same air at Venice, in public for the first time in her life, and in the presence of Marcello and Porpora :

I cieli immensi narrano

Del grande iddio la gloria!

This song came to her lips, because it is perhaps the most artless and thrilling expression which music has ever given to religious enthusiasm. But Consuelo was not sufficiently calm to restrain and direct her voice. After these two verses the intonation became a stifled sob, and, bursting into tears, she fell on her knees. The Invisibles, electrified by her fervour, had risen simultaneously, as if to hear, standing in an attitude of respect, this inspired song. But as But as they saw her fall beneath her emotion, they all descended and approached her, while Wanda, seizing her in her arms, and throwing her into those of Liverani, cried,—

"Look at him, then, and know that God accords you the power of reconciling love and virtue, happiness and duty."

Consuelo, for a moment deaf, and as it were rapt into another world, looked at last on Liverani, whose mask Marcus had just removed. She uttered a piercing cry, and fell fainting on his breast, as she recognised Albert. Albert and Liverani were the same.

THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER.

BY CORNELIUS COLVILLE.

"No?" said the man with the napless hat.

"No, sir," said I; "I don't believe a single word. It's all stuff— nonsense."

"Don't be too sure about that, old fellow," said my companion.

“Sir!” said I, indignantly, "you will oblige me by leaving that epithet out. I am neither old nor a fellow; and when I am addressed by a stranger, I expect that it will be with becoming respect."

"Ha! ha ha! I assure you, Mr. Bladdersnip, I have the utmost respect for you. It's only a silly way I have of addressing people." "I am satisfied," I said. "But to resume the subject.'

till to

"I don't see any use in recurring to it. If I talk with you morrow at this time you will be as dogmatical as ever. I can only repeat that I firmly believe in supernatural visitations; and that I have conversed with several well-informed persons upon the subject, and they were precisely of my own opinion."

"You cannot demonstrate to me, sir, the probability-the possibility of such appearances. It's ridiculous, sir-absurd. Ghosts and omens went out with bagwigs, farthingales, and high-heeled shoes."

"I shall drop the subject," said my companion; and he took a pipe from the table, and proceeded to fill it with tobacco-an example which I afterwards followed myself.

"You haven't an inch to stand upon," said I ;
; "not an inch."
"You are the most bigoted individual I ever conversed with."
"Bigoted!—not at all. I am open to conviction."
"Pshaw!-say no more about it."

"Oh! this is the way you get over the difficulty, is it?”
"I'm tired of the subject."

"Tired indeed you may be, for you have the worst side of the argument."

I was satisfied to allow the matter to rest here, seeing that my opponent was becoming irritable, and unable to make anything of the side he had espoused.

Some years ago business occasioned me to visit Edinburgh. It was in the month of October, and already dark when I arrived there. It had rained incessantly from about nine o'clock in the morning. I was much mortified to find that I could not be accommodated with a bed at the inn at which the coach stopped, the house being already filled with visitors. I was, therefore, compelled to seek lodgings elsewhere. It was not a very suitable night for that purpose; and, consequently, I determined to make use of the first house I came to. Seven o'clock was just striking as I entered an old-fashioned, singularly-built hotel, called the Hat and Feather. The rain was falling in torrents. I was conducted into a little room close to the bar, where I partook of some tea. I afterwards made inquiry as to the kind of accommodation they could afford me for the night, and was much disappointed to hear that they had but one room at liberty, and which had hitherto been used as a ball or exhibition-room, but that a bed could be put into it if I could reconcile myself to such an arrangement. There seemed to be no alternative; and I therefore intimated that I had no objection to the proposal, provided that the bed was comfortable. The chambermaid informed me that there would be no occasion for complaint on that ground. matter being so disposed of, I ordered a glass of their best whisky.

The

I sat some time alone, when a person at length entered the room. He was a little, merry, pert-looking fellow, with a ruddy countenance, a twinkling eye, and a snub nose. He was dressed in a pair of drab trousers, black coat and waistcoat, and his hat, which had come from the hands of the manufacturer without any nap, was stuck jauntily upon his head, and which imparted to him a shrewd and cunning appearance, which seemed to indicate that he was always on the alert. He was a dapper little fellow, but it was difficult to say what his calling or profession might be. He wore a ring on each hand, and his linen, I observed, was uncommonly fine and clean. On his upper lip there was an incipient moustache, which, however, did not add the least ferocity to his

countenance.

My companion was evidently communicative, and I at once entered into a conversation with him, as much with the view of eliciting from him what his pursuits in life were (for I was really curious on that head) as for the purpose of passing an hour away agreeably. The rain I distinctly heard continued to pour down with unabated vehemence.

By some means our conversation turned upon apparitions and witchcraft, and, at the commencement of this veritable narrative, I have recorded a few of the observations that were made on the occasion.

When my companion had lit his pipe, a silence of some minutes' dura