istence that my husband and I dragged on afterwards; it was that of prisoners confined together, chained together; but denied all social intercourse. Yet there was no enmity on either side; a reproach, an insinuation was never heard. One would have said our feelings were stagnant at our hearts; yet, perhaps, they only flowed too deeply, too wildly there. This cruel state of life was entirely owing to me-it was my fault alone. I knew afterwards that it was so. All this time he occupied my entire thoughts, my heart and soul; but to conceal this from him, to affect indifference,--even apathy, was my sedulous care. Men, I had heard, despise what is easily gained. The recollection of my offered hand made me wretched; and, fool that I was, I now imagined that the apparent coldness of the wife might atone for the unsought love of the maiden. What a means of making him forget the blank which the departure of Rosa had left in our society! I devoted myself, and my whole attentions outwardly, to my child-it was the only link between us; and when I looked at it, it was not so much with a mother's fondness as with a wife's anxieties. I felt that my affection, my care for it, were all a pretence. I was punished for this also.

"One day the little thing was standing on my knees, its little feet planted firmly there, as I held it erect, wondering at its strength, and gazing sadly at it while it laughed its infant joy. It suddenly gave a sort of spring, fell back, turned black in the face, and died. Yes, all was over; the link, the only link was broken. I had seen my error towards my poor mother when it was too late. I always see my errors when I can no longer repair them. I now saw my error towards my child. I had made it an excuse. I had been a hypocrite, a false mother, because a too anxious wife. My miserable love for one who had never loved me had lost me my mother and my child. So I thought, so I felt."

"You know well the art of selftormenting," I interposed.

Yes, yes; perhaps so. However, my grief, though immoderate, was silent, even sulky. I refused my husband's sympathy. I appeared to

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCIV.

think it impossible he could share my regrets. My health, which was always indifferent, grew daily worse.

"One day while conversing with, rather than consulting my doctor, he expressed his regret that he could not prevail on my husband to try the effect of the German waters, which he had prescribed as absolutely essential for his restoration to health. My husband! Waldemar! Was he ill? He who had never known a day's illness in his life save from the effects of his wounds! the object of my unceasing meditation, ill, suffering before my eyes, and I knew it not; uttering daily my own complaints; sensible to the burden of my own misery, I had all this time been unconscious of his! Ah, if he were to die now? I burst into a hysteric laugh as the idea of what my state would then be presented itself to me.

He,

"The doctor, alarmed at the effect of his disclosure, was also astonished at my previous ignorance, and justly attributed it to my excellent husband's tenderness for my feelings. Alas! he had been silent because I had been to him as a stranger. I saw immediately the cause of his refusing to go to Germany; I saw his unwillingness to excite my suspicions, and I resolved to act another part. My eyes once opened, I beheld with astonishment the change in his aspect, the hollows beneath his eyes, the heavy brow, the faded complexion -all spoke pain of mind still more than that of body.

"That night, in my silent chamber, I formed my plan; I took my solemn, steadfast resolution. It was my wish to be divorced; to see Waldemar again at liberty would, I thought, render me happy.

But

there were no grounds for obtaining a divorce, even in Germany; and, if it were obtained, it could not effect the object I now had in view, for I knew too well Rosa's delicate sentiments and English prejudices.

"Another plan of self-sacrifice, and one that depended wholly on myself, was necessary. I asked myself had I strength to perform it, and I felt I had.

"The next day Waldemar found me a different person, such as I had been six or eight months before. I spoke freely to him, apologised for

૧

my late behaviour, imputing it only to miserable health and broken nerves. He was surprised at this return of affection, and admitted that he had suffered deeply, and felt my injustice. He imputed this change in me to the discovery I had made of his state of health. As the pledge of our reconciliation, I exacted a promise that he would obey the physician, and repair to the Brunnens of Naussau. He proposed that I should accompany him. I entreated that this should not be a stipulation. My mind, I said, had need of entire repose. I wished to change the scene and air, but could not endure a watering-place. On the contrary, it was my wish, if he would consent to it, to spend some time in travel, especially in those countries with which we were so intimately and unhappily connected, but which he was prohibited from entering, Hungary and Poland.

"To this natural desire my husband made no objection; he believed, indeed, that such a change would tend to restore me to the peace I had lost.

"Finally, we both set out and separated in Germany. I had arranged to take a travelling servant from thence, and, after I parted from Waldemar, found an excuse for parting also with my female attendant, and taking one who was quite a stranger to me. I then hastened to the banker's where my money was lodged. Drawing out a part of it, I purchased a small annuity under an assumed name, and leaving the residue so that it could be reclaimed by Waldemar, I set forth on my projected tour. I wrote often to Waldemar, and received letters from him, the tone of which, far from that of an assumed affection, was truly consolatory to my heart. It told me that I was understood, that I was appreciated, that I was pitied. I felt that, so far as depended on himself, Waldemar would be a still better husband to me for the time to come. But this conviction did not move me, my resolution was taken; his kindness, his goodness, only gave me fresh strength to perform it. I resolved that he should be happy. Once beyond the frontier of Poland, my letters conveyed to him repeated complaints of my still failing health.

This, indeed, was true; and a severe illness had nearly accomplished my purpose without a falsehood. But I soon after carried that purpose into effect.

"I easily got a person of my acquaintance, on some trifling excuse, to write a letter of my dictation, as if to acquaint one of my friends with the event of his wife's death; the person who wrote it neither knowing who it was to, nor suspecting that I was myself the wife whose death I described. I got another to direct it to Waldemar, and carried it myself to the post. The letter contained an enclosure in my own writing-a few lines, as if written before my death, affectionately addressed both to him and Rosa, conveying to them jointly the residue of my property, but without the least allusion to the connexion that was to subsist between them; they expressed only the resignation with which I quitted for ever all I had loved or known.

"This was true; my sacrifice was complete; I was dead to the world. There was no chance of detection. Waldemar could never discover, even were he disposed to seek it, the place of my tomb; for it was in Poland, his unhappy land. Nearly two years have passed since my death was made known; Waldemar has been the most of that time a widower, but was his heart so? Yet sure I am he gave me some tears, and they were honest ones.

"The change in my appearance, my widow's dress and assumed name, saved me from detection. I thought I might reside with safety in a retired part of Germany, my native land. It was while on my way to the retreat I had selected, that, hearing of the charming seclusion of the baths of Rippoldsau, I was tempted to seek relief from its valuable waters. Could I have imagined an idea so wild as that Waldemar my husband, with his lovely and adored bride, would have chosen to pass their honeymoon in the same retreat?

Sus

"I shall henceforth be calm. pense is worse than certainty-my sacrifice is accepted-he is happy-I have not died in vain!"

It would be useless to record here the observations I made when at last permitted to speak. Argument, indeed, was now useless with the un

happy victim of her own sensibility and error. To induce her to look to another world for the happiness which she had, perhaps wilfully, lost in this was all my words, few and feeble as they were, aimed to do.

The next morning I went to her chamber to see how she had passed the night. It was locked, and I knocked without obtaining an answer. Believing that, like many others who expose their hearts to their fellow-creatures, she had now repented of having done so, and shrunk from seeing me, I retired, intending after the table-d'hôte, at which I knew she would not appear, again to make inquiries for her. But at that table I heard a singular tale related, and saw Rosa listening to it with the sweet face of a pitying angel.

The poor widow lady, it was said, who had been taken ill at dinner the day before, had the same evening been distressingly summoned to her home. She was a most afflicted creature; her husband's sudden death had plunged her into such a state of grief that she was induced to come to Rippoldsau to try the "cure," leaving her children to the care of a nurse, who, to avoid being troubled by her charge, placed them all on a table while she was otherwise engaged. Endeavouring to amuse themselves there at play, the others had rolled the youngest off the table, and if not actually dead when the express for its mother arrived, it was certain that it would not be alive when she reached her home.

Stories, unlike stones, gather by moving! Perhaps seme nearly incoherent expressions had escaped this unfortunate woman in her distress, and amid the bustle of a sudden departure, relating to her husband and her child, and these being ill understood by the wondering mädchen, were related to another and another,

until, as the story passed on through the community it assumed its present connected form; or another solution of it crossed my mind, but I I did not wish to believe it. Was it

possible she might have herself given rise to it by making a somewhat similar excuse for her abrupt departure? Only two particulars, as likely to be facts, I further understood; namely, that she had not gone to rest that night, and set off at four o'clock in the morning.

In my long and solitary walks through the pine-covered mountains that border on the Black Forest, I had usually found them left to myself; but now I was never sure of being there alone. Many a time I saw the seat to which I was hastening already occupied by two happy creatures-like the Adam and Eve of my late lonely paradise, I beheld their bright forms glancing amid the dark trees, and starting forth in life and joy from the wild thickets, or bending their beamy countenances over the mountain-stream; I heard the music of their happy voices, I felt the sunshine of their joyful faces beam upon my own heart, and, away from all other sights and sounds, I could have said the world is full of joy and love, till a sudden thought overcast its shade, and I felt the reflection of their happiness no longer! I had often said to myself, What a sweet spot is Rippoldsau to pass a honeymoon! I thought SO now again, while these two, doubtless, shared the thought and echoed the words; but I shuddered while I reflected that a word from me, an unregarded stranger, could strike away all the sweetness from that place and time, and cast the gloom of the shadow of death over that beautiful and now blushing cheek.

Rippoldsau, August 20, 1845.

SELINA.