with inexpressible eagerness," for Heaven's sake, what of him?—is he with you?" and he looked eagerly about, and cast his eyes upwards to the group above, as if with the hope of detecting the figure of Amherst.

"No, my Lord, he is not with us,” said Cleaver calmly; "he went this morning on an excursion of pleasure to the Highlands."

"Pleasure!" said Lord Eaglesholme; "pleasure did you say, Sir! Could Amherst Oakenwold take pleasure, so soon after his separation from Eliza Malcolm? Then his is not the heart I had read it to be."

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My Lord," said Cleaver, " I have been led innocently to use an expression, which I see is calculated to injure my young friend in your estimation, and which I only employed in its general sense. Pleasure was, indeed, very far from his thoughts. His mind was plunged in the deepest melancholy by the issue of a conversation he had with your Lordship yesterday. It was that diseased state of mind, which induces the sufferer, he knows not why, vainly to attempt to flee from his sorrows. It was this, I say, added to the wish he felt to give full obe

dience to those implied engagements he had come under to your Lordship, and a dread lest the strength of his passion might have rendered it impossible to maintain his integrity, had he remained nearer the object of it;—it was, I may say, in obedience to your Lordship's own commands, that he forced himself away from the neighbourhood of Eaglesholme Castle!"

Lord Eaglesholme groaned audibly.—“ Incomparable Amherst!" said he; then looking upwards towards Heaven," Merciful powers! how am I the sport of untoward fate! Would to God that Amherst were here! I would tell him!

-But, alas!" continued he, as if recollecting himself after a pause, and with an emotion that powerfully agitated him, "Alas! the dear object of his hopes, and of my hopes, is no longer at Eaglesholme! Eliza Malcolm has this very night been carried off by a band of unknown ruffians, who broke into the Castle."

"Good Heavens! Miss Malcolm carried away!" exclaimed Cleaver, petrified with amazement. "How-when-and in what manner, I beseech you ?"

Lord Eaglesholme then proceeded to give

him a hasty outline of the mysterious affair; but we must tell it more fully to the reader.

The information Amherst obtained from his servant in the grotto has already informed us of the affliction Miss Malcolm was thrown into, by those communications her uncle made to her after Amherst's departure from the Castle of Eaglesholme. Being carried to bed immediately after the conference, she remained all next day in a state of misery too dreadful for description. The good Madame Bossanville wept unceasingly, whilst, with the tenderest affection, she vainly endeavoured to console her beloved charge, though conscious that she possessed not the means of doing so. The hopes of Miss Malcolm were so cruelly crushed in the very setting of their blossom, and her heart was so torn, that much as she loved her uncle, she could not muster strength and resolution enough to join him at dinner, where her emotions must have necessarily been subjected to the observation and remarks of the domestics.

At Madame Bossanville's earnest entreaty, she exerted herself to move into the drawing-room in the evening, with the intention of receiving Lord

Eaglesholme there. But she had no sooner entered it than her guitar, her drawing instruments, nay, almost every piece of furniture in the apartment her eyes rested on, brought the figure of Amherst fresh before her mind, and recalled all those tender hours they had so lately spent together, giving way to the enjoyment of those exquisite feelings arising from a virtuous and reciprocal passion, and in the full anticipation of an immediate union. How agonizing the events of one little day! The images which crowded to her imagination powerfully overcame her, and just as Madame Bossanville was preparing to go to Lord Eaglesholme to invite him to the drawing-room, Miss Malcolm burst into an agony of grief so violent, that the compassionate old lady saw the necessity of postponing the interview for some time, to allow the fulness of her heart to exhaust itself, before she should be subjected to that restraint, which she knew she would impose on herself, to alleviate her uncle's great anxiety regarding her.

Madame Bossanville, therefore, seated herself in a large fauteuil, with her back to the windows, and with her eyes fixed in melancholy sympathy

on her young friend, who had thrown herself into a high-backed sofa, and was giving vent to her affliction with her head buried in the folds of a shawl. She watched her with painful solicitude, until the paroxysm of grief had in some measure expended itself; and her sighs and the throbbings of her bosom were gradually subsiding, when, as she was about to offer a few words of comfort, her ear was struck with a sound resembling the sharp click of the spring bolt of the glass-door, immediately behind her, as if turned by some hand.

She was in the act of stretching round, to gain a view backwards, beyond the high enclosure of the chair she was in, and in doing so, she glanced her eyes across the field of a large mirror, on' the opposite wall, which reflecting the image of that side of the room behind her, showed her the glass-door open, and the figure of a man muffled up, with his face almost entirely concealed beneath the shade of a very broad hat, stealing forwards upon them.

Before she had more than time to utter a faint scream, four or five ruffians, similarly disguised, were in the room, and Miss Malcolm and she