rence.

At length the lady opened her large hazel eyes, and glanced wildly
around, a quick spasm passing like an electric shock over her frame at
the same instant; for the funeral scene burst upon her view, and
reminded her where she was, and why she was there.

Recovering herself almost as rapidly as she had succumbed beneath
physical and mental exhaustion, she started from Francisco's arms; and
turning upon him a beseeching, inquiring glance, exclaimed in a voice
which ineffable anguish could not rob of its melody: "Is it true--oh,
tell me is it true that the Count Riverola is no more?"

"It is, alas! too true, lady," answered Francisco, in a tone of the
deepest melancholy.

The heart of the fair stranger rebounded at the words which thus seemed
to destroy a last hope that lingered in her soul; and a hysterical
shriek burst from her lips as she threw her snow-white arms, bare to the
shoulders, around the head of the pall-covered coffin.

"Oh! my much-loved--my noble Andrea!" she exclaimed, a torrent of tears
now gushing from her eyes.

"That voice!--is it possible?" cried one of the spectators who had been
hitherto standing, as before said, at a respectful distance: and the
speaker--a man of tall, commanding form, graceful demeanor, wondrously
handsome countenance, and rich attire--immediately hurried toward the
spot where the young female still clung to the coffin, no one having the
heart to remove her.

The individual who had thus stepped forward, gave one rapid but
searching glance at the lady's countenance; and, yielding to the
surprise and joy which suddenly animated him, he exclaimed: "Yes--it is,
indeed, the lost Agnes!"

The young female started when she heard her name thus pronounced in a
place where she believed herself to be entirely unknown; and
astonishment for an instant triumphed over the anguish of her heart.

Hastily withdrawing her snow-white arms from the head of the coffin, she
turned toward the individual who had uttered her name, and he instantly
clasped her in his arms, murmuring, "Dearest--dearest Agnes, art thou
restored----"

But the lady shrieked, and struggled to escape from that tender embrace,
exclaiming, "What means this insolence? will no one protect me?"

"That will I," said Francisco, darting forward, and tearing her away
from the stranger's arms. "But, in the name of Heaven! let this
misunderstanding be cleared up elsewhere. Lady--and you, signor--I call
on you to remem