ret's, and the spot
where the lovers stood. Max was at a little distance from Catherine,
pacing gloomily up and down the flags. She remained at her old position
at the tombstone under the tree, or pillar, as it seemed to be, as the
moon got up. She was leaning against the pillar, and holding out to Max,
with an arm beautifully white and rounded, the letter she had received
from her husband: "Read it, Max," she said: "I asked for light, and here
is Heaven's own, by which you may read."

But Max did not come forward to receive it. On a sudden his face assumed
a look of the most dreadful surprise and agony. He stood still, and
stared with wild eyes starting from their sockets; he stared upwards,
at a point seemingly above Catherine's head. At last he raised up his
finger slowly and said, "Look, Cat--THE HEAD--THE HEAD!" Then uttering a
horrible laugh, he fell down grovelling among the stones, gibbering and
writhing in a fit of epilepsy.

Catherine started forward and looked up. She had been standing against a
post, not a tree--the moon was shining full on it now; and on the summit
strangely distinct, and smiling ghastly, was a livid human head.

The wretched woman fled--she dared look no more. And some hours
afterwards, when, alarmed by the Count's continued absence, his
confidential servant came back to seek for him in the churchyard, he was
found sitting on the flags, staring full at the head, and laughing,
and talking to it wildly, and nodding at it. He was taken up a hopeless
idiot, and so lived for years and years; clanking the chain, and moaning
under the lash, and howling through long nights when the moon peered
through the bars of his solitary cell, and he buried his face in the
straw.

*****

There--the murder is out! And having indulged himself in a chapter of
the very finest writing, the author begs the attention of the British
public towards it; humbly conceiving that it possesses some of those
peculiar merits which have rendered the fine writing in other chapters
of the works of other authors so famous.

Without bragging at all, let us just point out the chief claims of the
above pleasing piece of composition. In the first place, it is perfectly
stilted and unnatural; the dialogue and the sentiments being artfully
arranged, so as to be as strong and majestic as possible. Our dear Cat
is but a poor illiterate country wench, who has come from cutting her
husband's throat; and yet, see!