ed to each;
a little lower down came a mournful register, the dates and manner of
her sons' deaths; but the Christian spirit that had taught her words and
prayers of gratitude, had been with her in the time of trouble; the
passages were penned in true humility and humble-mindedness, though the
blisterings of many tears remained upon the paper.

Constantia turned over the leaves more carelessly than was her custom;
but her eye dwelt upon one of the beautiful promises, given with so much
natural poetry by the great Psalmist,--"I have been young, and now am
old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their
bread." "Alas!" she thought, "I can derive only half consolation from
such as this. One of my parents was indeed righteous; but, alas! what
has the other been?" She bowed her head upon the book, and did not again
raise it, until a soft hand touched her shoulder, and a light voice
whispered "Constance!"

It was Lady Frances Cromwell.

"My dear Constantia! here's a situation! I never knew any thing so
provoking, so tantalising! My father, they say, has taken as many as
twenty prisoners, of one sort or another; and has caged them up in that
purple-room with himself, examining into and searching out every
secret--secrets I want so much to know. He has got the Buccaneer, they
say."

"Who says so?" inquired Constance eagerly.

"Why, everybody. Maud says so. And I have been to the door at least ten
times; but even the key-hole, I verily believe, is plugged. I am sure it
is, for I tried hard to see through it."

"The crisis of my fate is indeed come," murmured Constantia. Then, after
a pause, she was about to address her friend: "My dear Lady Frances--"

"Don't Lady Frances me," interrupted the young maiden, pettishly. "I
hate to be Lady Frances. I should know more about every thing if I were
a chamberlain's daughter."

"Your father can discover nought to your prejudice. I confess I both
dread and hope to hear news of the Gull's Nest. There is nothing which
can affect you there."

"How can I tell? Poor Rich chooses queer postmen sometimes! And that
Manasseh Ben Israel! he is as anxious as myself to know what is going
on. Two rooms locked up! Constance, I wonder you have not more spirit
than to submit to such proceedings. I would not."

"I am sorry for it; because it shows that your confidence in your father
is overbalanced by your curiosity."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed the lady, turning from her frie