er names, and under the finest sympathies and affections of our
nature.

With a step light and noiseless as that of her favourite spaniel who
crept behind her, did Constance make an early visit to ascertain the
safety of her prisoner. His retreat was unmolested. The pursuit was for
the present evaded, and his enemies thrown out in their track. It was
needful, however, that he should remain for a few days in his present
concealment, prior to the attempt by which he purposed to regain his
native country.

Constance loved the moonlight. The broad glare of day is so garish and
extravagant. Besides, there is a restlessness and a buz no human being,
at least no sensible human being, can endure. Everything is on the stir.
Every creature, however paltry and insignificant, whether moth, mote, or
atom, seems busy. Whereas, one serene soft gaze of the moon appears to
allay nature's universal disquiet. The calm and mellow placidity of her
look, so heavenly and undisturbed, lulls the soul, and subdues its
operations to her influence.

Constance, we may suppose, accidentally wandered by the end of the
building, where, in the huge buttress of chimneys, a narrow crevice
admitted light into the chamber occupied by the fugitive. At times,
perhaps unconsciously, her eye wandered from the moon to this dreary
abode; where it lingered longest is more than we dare tell. She drew
nigh to the dark margin of the pond. The white swans were sleeping in
the sedge. At her approach they fluttered clumsily to their element;
there, the symbols of elegance and grace, like wreaths of sea-foam on
its surface, they glided on, apparently without an impulse or an effort.
She was gazing on them when a rustle amongst the willows on her left
arrested her attention. Soon the mysterious and almost omnipresent form
of Tyrone stood before her.

"I must away, maiden--Constance!" His voice was mournful as the last
faint sound of the evening bell upon the waters.

"Why art thou here?" She said this in a tone of mingled anxiety and
surprise.

"Here? Too long have I lingered in these woods and around thy dwelling,
Constance. But I must begone--for ever!"

"For ever?" cried the perplexed girl, forgetful of all but the dread
thought of that for ever!

"Ay, for ever? Why should I stay?"

This question, alas! she could not answer, but stood gazing on the dark
water, and on the silver waves which the bright swans had rippled over
the pool. Though she saw them not