fering. Hour after hour still found her on her knees, yet
she could not form a single petition to the Divine Father. As Southey
has beautifully expressed the same feelings in the finest of all his
poems:

"An agony of tears was all her soul could offer."

Midnight came; the moon had climbed high in the heavens. The family had
retired for the night, and deep silence reigned through the house, when
Juliet rose from her knees, and approaching the open casement, looked
long and sadly into the serene, tranquil depths of the cloudless night.

Who ever gazed upon the face of the divine mother in vain? The spirit of
peace brooded over the slumbering world--that holy calm which no passion
of man can disturb--which falls with the same profound stillness round
the turmoil of the battle-field, and the bed of death--which enfolds in
its silent embrace the eternity of the past--the wide ocean of the
present. How many streaming eyes had been raised to that cloudless
moon!--how many hands had been lifted up in heart-felt prayer to those
solemn star-gemmed heavens! What tales of bitter grief had been poured
out to the majesty of night! The eyes were quenched in the darkness of
the grave; the hands were dust; and the impassioned hearts that once
breathed those plaintive notes of woe, where, oh where were they? The
spirit that listened to the sorrows of their day had no revelation to
make of their fate!

"And I, what am I, that I should repine and murmur against the decrees
of Providence?" sighed Juliet. "The sorrows that I now endure have been
felt by thousands who now feel no more. God, give me patience under
every trial. In humble faith teach me resignation to Thy divine will."

With a sorrowful tranquillity of mind she turned from the window, struck
a light, and prepared to undress, when her attention was arrested by a
letter lying upon her dressing table. She instantly recognised the hand,
and hastily breaking the seal, read with no small emotion the following
lines

Say, dost thou think that I could be
False to myself and false to thee?
This broken heart and fever'd brain
May never wake to joy again.
Yet conscious innocence has given
A hope that triumphs o'er despair;
I trust my righteous cause to heaven,
And brace my tortured soul to bear
The worst that can on earth befall,
In losing thee--my life, my all!

The dove of promise to my ark,
The pole-star to my wandering