the dark channels of fraud and jealousy, we have come to
the eve of that strange and wild page in our story, which long attached a
tragic interest to the hails of Daventry, and swept all but the name of
that ancient race into obscurity.

On the fifteenth of December, Lady Alice Daventry was confined of a son.
All the usual demonstrations of joy were forbidden by Sir John, on the
plea of Lady Alice's precarious situation. Her health, weakened by the
events of the past year, had nearly proved unequal to this trial of her
married life, and the fifth morning after her illness was the first on
which the physician held out confident hopes of her having strength to
carry her through. Up to that time the survival of the infant had been a
matter of doubt; but on that morning, as though the one slender thread had
bound both to existence, fear was laid aside, and calmness reigned through
the mansion of Daventry. On that morning, too, arrived a letter directed
to "The Lady Alice Daventry." A dark shade flitted over Sir John's face as
he read the direction; then placing it among his other letters reserved
for private perusal, he left the room.

The day wore on, each hour giving increasing strength to the Lady Alice
and her boy-heir. During its progress, it was noticed, even by the
servants, that their master seemed unusually discomposed, and that his
countenance wore an expression of ghastly paleness. As he sat alone, after
dinner, he drank glass after glass of wine, but they brought no flush to
his cheek--wrought no change in his appearance; some mightier spirit seemed
to bid defiance to the effects of drink. At a late hour he retired to his
room. The physician had previously paid his last visit to the chamber of
his patient; she was in a calm sleep, and the last doubt as to her
condition faded from his mind, as, in a confident tone, he reiterated his
assurance to the nurse-tender "that she might lie down and take some
rest--that nothing more was to be feared."

-------------------------------------

The gloom of a December's night had closed, dark and dreary, around the
Hall, while, through the darkness, the wind drove the heavy rain against
the easements; but, undisturbed by the rain and winds, the Lady Alice and
her infant lay in a tranquil sleep; doubt and danger had passed from them;
the grave had seemed to yawn toward the mother and child, but the clear
color on the transparent cheek, the soft and regular