now her utmost force, though shaking with nameless apprehensions, she crossed, with celerity, a gravestone, to gain what appeared to be the quickest route for descending; when the sound of a hasty step, immediately behind her, gave her the fearful intelligence that escape was impossible.

Nevertheless, though nearly overcome with dread, she was pressing on; but some one, rushing abruptly past her, and turning short round, stopt her passage.

Horrour thrilled through her every vein, in the persuasion that she was the destined victim of deliberate delusion, when the words, 'It is, indeed, then, you!' uttered in an accent of astonishment, yet with softness, made her hastily raise her eyes,—and raise them upon Harleigh.

Bereft of prudence, in the suddenness of her joy; forgetting self-command, and casting off all guard, all reserve, she rapturously held out to him her willing hands, exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr Harleigh!—are you, then, my destined protector?—my guardian angel?'

Speechless from transported surprize, Harleigh pressed to his lips and to his heart each unresisting hand; while Juliet, whose eyes beamed lustrous with buoyant felicity, was unconscious of the happiness that she bestowed, from the absorption of the delight that she experienced.

'Precious, for ever precious moment!' cried Harleigh, when the power of utterance returned; 'Here, on this spot, where first the tortures of the most deadly suspense give way to the most exquisite hopes,—'

The countenance of Juliet now again underwent a change the most sudden; its brilliancy was overclouded; its smiles vanished; its joy died[Pg 553] away; not, indeed, to return to its look of horrour and affright, but to convey an expression of the deepest shame and regret; and, with cheeks tingling with burning blushes, she strove to regain her hands; to recover her composure; and to account to him, by relating what had been her dread, and her mistake, for her flattering reception.

[Pg 553]

But she strove in vain: her efforts to disengage herself had no more that frozen severity which Harleigh had not dared resist; and though her earnestness and distress shewed their sincerity, her varying blushes, her inability to find words, and her uncontroulable emotion, demonstrated, to his quick perception, that to govern her own conflicting feelings, at this critical moment, was as difficult as to resume over his accustomed dominion.

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