of repute.' This, then, I must endure; besides, if you knew my whole mournful story, you would see that, though I deserve much pity, I merit some blame but not in this case. The world whispers that my noble champion is engaged to a long-loved and virtuous cousin, and that, while watching with a woman's devotion by his bed-side, her heart burns with a jealous suspicion that her intended loved, or, at least, professed to love, the unhappy Zelie for whom he fought.

"To remove this maddening impression, I venture on this step. I cannot bear that, as a reward for his noble defence of me, he should lose the confidence of the being whom I believe he entirely and constantly loves. To myself the result of this affair brings many sorrows, but that is the greatest of all. Forgive me!—I have done. I do not ask you to write to me-I beg you not to thank me. It will solace me in the midst of all this odious publicity and misrepresentation, to dwell in private on your renewed confidence and increased love for your noble cousin.

"Oh! how much sweeter than the broad noonday glare of a public career, however successful, are the green and moonlit dells where domestic affections nestle unseen! Farewell! I leave you to your perfect happiness-to the joy of watching, without one doubt, over the deserving object of your first love-yourself the object of his reverential tenderness. I go to fill the souls of those who care not for me with the hired accents of real anguish or assumed delight. I go to glitter before thousands of cold stranger-eyes-the mimic queen. of a tinsel-scene, nothing real but my own sad heart. You go to love and to be blessed-I go to be stared at, to be applauded, and to be slandered!.... "LA ZELIE."

CHAPTER XLI.

"Slighted love is sair to bide."

BURNS.

"Yea, even the name I have worshipped in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again.
To bear is to conquer our fate.

CAMPBELL.

Ellen's first feeling in reading La Zelie's letter was certainly one of pleasure. She could not help rejoicing that Julian was not engaged in a fashionable but demoralising liaison, and, though she condemned duelling, she was proud that the cause in which he had fought had been one so chivalrous. But there was much in the letter, when she re-perused it, that, spite of herself, wounded her heart and saddened her spirit.

It seemed like the congratulations made to

a mother on the birth of a child, by one ignorant that it had been snatched away. Poor Ellen! every word which the strange but generous Zelie had meant as a balm stung her to the heart.

"It is intended for Augusta," she said, to herself, at length, after some minutes of painful reverie. "It is a mere mistake in the name. Let me hasten to her. I ought to rejoice in being the bearer of so much comfort. Why do I weep?-have not my prayers been heard? Did I not say that were he but saved, I could be happy in his union with Augusta ?-I can-I will."

She hastened to Augusta's room. Augusta had been really suffering-wounded both in her pride, her vanity, and her affection (or rather her preference). To her, Zelie's letter was indeed a panacea. She did not express one consolatory doubt that it was meant for her, and, not quite deficient in generous impulses, she wrote a warm letter of thanks to Zelie.

"I shall be quite well to-morrow," she

cried, fondly embracing Ellen. "I am very silly to take things so much to heart; I wish I were calm and sensible, like you, dear. Your presence of mind and composure make you really useful, while I am of no service to those I would die to benefit, from the very excess of my absurd sensibility. But tomorrow I will atone. How tired you must be! How worn and ill you look!

To

morrow, you can rest, love, for I instal myself head-nurse till Julian is quite well!"

"To do that you must sleep well to-night." "Oh, I shall be sure to sleep well now; first, because Ruth tells me Julian is much better; next, because he is not La Zelie's lover; then, because I know he is mine; and, finally, because I have slept very little these two last nights."

And Ellen she had slept still less! The tears were in her eyes, and her cheeks were deadly pale, as she left the room, but she said, in a firm voice, "God bless you, dear Augusta!"

It may seem strange that a being, to all