s over, I was confessing my history to
Edward, or standing by him at the altar, or else being dragged
from his side by Henry, or by my uncle. The visions of sleep,
and the thoughts of the night, were strangely mixed up in my
mind when I woke: tired and jaded with all I had gone through,
I went down-stairs on the morning of the 28th of February,
which was the eve of the day of our departure for London.

In the breakfast-room, I found Edward, who asked me with some
surprise, how I came to be so late, and if I did not mean to
go to church?

"To-day, why to church to-day?" I inquired.

"It is Ash Wednesday," he replied, "the most solemn fast-day
in the year."

"Oh, in that case, I will go at once, and do without
breakfast; no great self-denial, for I am not in the least
hungry." I put on my bonnet and shawl, and we set off on foot
together, "Mr. and Mrs. Middleton having previously gone on in
the carriage. I was very feverish, and from want of sleep and
absence of food together, I felt in an unnaturally excited
state. Whenever Edward spoke to me, I gave a start, and when I
spoke myself, it was with a sort of nervous irritation, which
I could not command; at last he seemed displeased, and when he
stood still, to give me his hand, in crossing the stile, at
the entrance of the churchyard, I saw in his face that stern
expression which I had begun to know and to dread. We went
into church; the service was already begun; it is, as it
should be on such a day, a solemn and an awful service. The
Epistle for the day, that mournful and merciful appeal to the
conscience, the Penitential Psalms, which seem to embody the
very cry of a bruised and overwhelmed heart, everything struck
the same chord, spoke the same language; to my excited
imagination, every word that was uttered seemed as if it was
addressed to me alone, of all that assembled congregation.
Every moment my head was getting more confused, and my soul
grew faint within me. And then, when I was not in the least
expecting it, (for I had never before paid any attention to
the service for Ash Wednesday,) all at once there rose a voice
which said, in what sounded to my overwrought nerves, an
unnaturally loud tone:

"Brethren, in the Primitive Church there was a godly
discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as
stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and
punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the
Day of the Lord; and