nd to the friar and said,--"Now bring me
to this unhappy girl," Woodward seized his hat, feeling a presentiment
that he was going to the relief of Alice Goodwin, and with hasty steps
proceeded to the farm house in which she and her parents lodged. He
was now desperate, and resolved, if courtesy failed, to force one more
annihilating glance upon her before the mysterious stranger should
arrive. We need scarcely inform our readers that he was indignantly
repulsed by the family; but he was furious, and in spite of all
opposition forced his way into her bedroom, to which he was led by her
groans--dying groans they were considered by all around her. He rushed
into her bed-room, and fixed his eye upon her with something like the
fury of hell in it. The poor girl on seeing him a second time fell back
and moaned as if she had expired. The villain stood looking over her in
a spirit of the most malignant triumph.

"It is done now," said he; "there she lies--a corpse--and I am now
master of my twelve hundred a year."

He had scarcely uttered the words when he felt a powerful hand grasp him
by the shoulder, and send him with dreadful violence to the other side
of the room. On turning round to see who the person was who had
actually twirled him about like an infant, he found the large, but
benevolent-looking stranger standing at Alice's bedside, his finger
upon the pulse and his eyes intently fixed upon her apparently lifeless
features. He then turned round to Woodward, and exclaimed in a voice of
thunder,--

"She is not dead, villain, and will not die on this occasion: begone,
and leave the room."

"Villain!" replied Woodward, putting his hand to his sword: "I allow no
man to call me villain unpunished."

The stranger contemptuously and indignantly waved his hand to him, as
much as to say--presently, presently, but not now. The truth is, the
loud tones of his voice had caused Alice to open her eyes, and instead
of trading the dreaded being before her, there stood the symbol of
benevolence and moral power, with his mild, but clear and benignant eye
smiling upon her.

"My dear child," said he, "look upon me and give me your hands. You
shall, with the assistance of that God who has so mysteriously gifted
me, soon be well, and free from the evil and diabolical influence which
I has been for such selfish and accursed purposes exercised over you."

He then took her beautiful but emaciated hands into his own, which were
also soft