m the one youth to the other, and observed
that Agnes, overpowered by emotion, had scarcely power to perform her
part, despite the whispered words of encouraging affection Nigel
murmured in her ear. One by one the cuirass and shoulder-pieces, the
greaves and gauntlets, the gorget and brassards, the joints of which
were so beautifully burnished that they shone as mirrors, and so
flexible that every limb had its free use, enveloped those manly forms.
Their swords once again girt to their sides, and once more kneeling, the
king descended from his throne, alternately dubbing them knight in the
name of God, St. Michael, and St. George.

THE CULPRIT AND THE JUDGE

From 'Home Influence'

Mrs. Hamilton was seated at one of the tables on the dais nearest the
oriel window, the light from which fell on her, giving her
figure--though she was seated naturally enough in one of the large
maroon-velvet oaken chairs--an unusual effect of dignity and command,
and impressing the terrified beholder with such a sensation of awe that
had her life depended on it, she could not for that one minute have gone
forward; and even when desired to do so by the words "I desired your
presence, Ellen, because I wished to speak to you: come here without any
more delay,"--how she walked the whole length of that interminable room,
and stood facing her aunt, she never knew.

Mrs. Hamilton for a full minute did not speak, but she fixed that
searching look, to which we have once before alluded, upon Ellen's face;
and then said, in a tone which, though very low and calm, expressed as
much as that earnest look:--

"Ellen! is it necessary for me to tell you why you are here--necessary
to produce the proof that my words are right, and that you _have_ been
influenced by the fearful effects of some unconfessed and most heinous
sin? Little did I dream its nature."

For a moment Ellen stood as turned to stone, as white and rigid--the
next she had sunk down with a wild, bitter cry, at Mrs. Hamilton's feet,
and buried her face in her hands.

"Is it true--can it be true--that you, offspring of my own sister; dear
to me, cherished by me as my own child--you have been the guilty one to
appropriate, and conceal the appropriation of money, which has been a
source of distress by its loss, and the suspicion thence proceeding, for
the last seven weeks?--that you could listen to your uncle's words,
absolving his whole household as incapable of a deed which was actual