But at that very moment a dull flat report, as of a distant gun-shot, broke the silence, and the dog pricked his pendulous ears, and stalked with a low growl to the door-way, while the lady turned her head quickly towards the window, whence she had just withdrawn. Her first glance was towards the road, and where it crossed the hill-top she saw clearly the head of a man, and then his whole figure, with his horse, rise rapidly against the brilliant gleam of the western sky; so instantaneous was his transit, however, that she would almost have distrusted her eye-sight, had not the clatter of hoofs, dashing fiercely down the hill side, assured her of its accuracy, for now the slope and base of the hill were all in misty and uncertain shadow. Before she had well thought on what she had scarce seen, another, and another, and another head crossed the steep verge, and as they crossed it were discovered, by the bright glitter, to be covered with steel caps, the well known head-dress of the puritan troopers; another second sufficed to bring into full view a party of some twenty horse, who halted for a moment on the summit. A dozen of quick flashes ran along their front, and the sharp rattle of a volley followed; again a minute, and they too had galloped down the slope, and were enveloped in thick gloom. All this passed in less time than it has taken to describe it, but still the lady had marked and understood it all, and acted on the instant as a kind heart, instigated by woman's natural sympathy with the oppressed dictated. With a quick step she left the fishing-house, and stood upon a little flight of steps which ran down a platform level with the bridge, to the stream's brink. And scarcely had she reached her stand before the single horseman wheeled round the angle of the wood, and crossed the bridge at as fast a rate as his drooping steed could compass. The pursuers, scarcely five hundred yards behind him, were still beyond the woodland, which alone hindered them from seeing him.

"Hist!" she cried, "hist, sir cavalier!" in clear low tones, which made themselves distinctly audible to him whom she addressed, though they would have been scarcely heard at three yards distance. "Halt, as you love your life-halt, for God's sake!"

The cavalier who has been thus speeding from the Roundheads is none other than the hero of the story; Alice, of course, being the heroine. She succeeds in directing and guiding him so as to elude the pursuers; and at length the pair reach old Mark Selby's baronial dwelling. The father, daughter, and Marmaduke stand in the library, where after some words, a little dumb show, and a few preliminary movements, a secret opening is discovered. And now for the business of elaborate concealment.

"Alice," the old man said, "to-bed, we will speak more to-morrowpass in, sir!" And the girl left the room, and hurried to her chamber with a glad but quick-throbbing heart; and the stranger entered the dark passage, and old Mark Selby followed him, and drew the concealed panel, masked by the ponderous book-shelves, after him: and the old library was tenantless again, and not a soul could have suspected, though he had searched it for a month, that private passage. But when they stood within

it the old man struck a light, and lit the lamp, and raised it to the face of his new guest, and gazed into his features as though he would have read his soul. "Ha," he said "ha," and paused again a little while, and then added, "Be it so I will trust you." And no word passed between them more, for the old man almost angrily imposed strict silence when the stranger would have spoken. And far he led him by long and winding corridors, delved through the thickness of the wall, up-stairs and down, till he had brought him to a low dark vault, scarce six feet perpendicular height by twelve in circuit, in which stood a table of dark oak, an old arm-chair, two or three stools of the same plain material, and a large pallet bed, heaped high with blankets, and soft coverlets, and sheets of snowy whiteness. Besides these articles of furniture the gloomy chamber contained nothing but a few shelves, in one corner whereon were piled two or three pewter platters, an earthen bowl and pitcher, a salt-cellar, a knife-case, a cruise of oil, and four tall Venice wine-glasses. There was no carpet on the floor, nor any hangings on the bare plaistered walls; nor was there any window, or even shothole, whereat a single ray of blessed daylight could peer in to cheer the sad soul of the inmate. As if to compensate, however, for this want, there were no less than three doors beside that which had admitted them, massive and steel clenched, and secured by bolts of singular device, and bars and chains of iron.

"This is a poor abode, young sir," said Selby, as he set down the lamp upon the table, "but it is safe, at least, and that to one in your condition is something always. No person now alive, save Alice and myself, knows the existence of this hiding-place, much less the, ways that lead to it; and you, before you quit it, must swear by all that men hold holy, never by word or deed, by sign or hint, or writing, to reveal it. Meantime, here will we - shelter you until such time as we may send you forth in safety. Food shall be brought you daily, and light, and change of raiment, and if you wish it, books, but on society you must not count, not even on ours, for carefully we must eschew suspicion. Before I leave you to repose, one other secret of your dwelling place I must disclose to you." He opened, as he spoke, another door, and showed a narrow stairway, winding, as it seemed, downward into interminable gloom.

"At the foot of these steps," he said, pointing through the opening, "you will find what appears a square well of water, and by it a trap door; the first will furnish you the means of cleanliness and comfort, and by the latter you may cast into the moat nightly the remnants of your food, and aught else, that if discovered here might cause suspicion. On no account, however, enter the well to bathe, for it were certain death, unless you knew the secret. Be careful when you pass those stairs to do it very silently,―here you cannot be heard though you should sing or whistle, there it were perilous indeed. The other doors lead elsewhere, and are locked. Let me know now who is my guest; and pledge me, as a soldier and a gentleman, your word of honour not to leave this apartment, except by the door I have shown you, leading to the water. You would risk all our lives by wandering about the corridors."

Marmaduke remains for weeks in the most wonderfully secret chamber, but at length makes his escape to France; although not till VOL. II. (1843.) No. IV.

H H

after the ministering angel, Alice, has lost as well as, she confidingly trusts, made captive a heart, but all with the entire concurrence of the father; who, however, on account of the suspicions of his having secreted the cavalier, is obliged along with the heroine, to make his escape. They find themselves in Paris, Wyvill in the meanwhile having distinguished himself in the French service. But alas! the gentleman is as fickle as the lady is faithful. One scene,-it is in the palace garden,-crowns the slow-coming convictions of the maiden.

After a while, "Well, Alice," said her cousin, "I think we have had enough of this. If Monsieur de Bellefonds will be so good as to inquire for my carriage at the gate, we will sit down and wait for his return in this quiet arbour." The place of which she spoke was no more than a nook or green recess, hollowed out of the thickness of a great yew hedge, with a seat capable of accommodating two, or at most three persons, overlooking the principal jet d'eau and carrefour, the great or common centre from which the several avenues diverged. The gentleman bowed and walked quickly off towards the gate of the Tuilleries, and the two ladies sat down in the shade, neither of them for the moment much inclined to talk; for there is a re-action which follows the excitement of very forced and brilliant conversation, as surely as it does excitement of any other kind, and a sort of vague lassitude, which makes them rather to think within themselves than to speak of what had been passing. It happened to be the case, however, that the same hedge in which the sylvan seat was framed where they were sitting, was the external boundary of a maze or labyrinth, laid out with rare skill and many intricate and double windings; and exactly behind the spot where Alice sat, another similar recess had been cut in the thickness of the hedge opening to the walk behind, and only separated from the bower in front by a few inches of thick evergreen foliage, sufficient, indeed, to prevent the eye from discerning any thing beyond, but suffering every word that was spoken to pass through its leafy screen. This seat, the existence of which had been suspected by neither of the ladies, was unoccupied when they first sat down; but scarcely had they been there a minute, when they discovered the footsteps of two persons, one evidently a lady, coming along the walk behind them, and immediately afterwards became aware that they had paused almost beside them. A moment afterwards, the sweet and low-toned voice of a woman was heard, saying, "Oh, this is very wrong; I fear that it is very wrong, indeed. What will my father say when he misses me, and finds that you have come off with me?"

"Say? why what should he say, sweet Isabella," answered a man in tones, each note of which struck to the very heart of Alice, "but that you are a wild one ever, and ran away into the maze, and that I came to seek for you, lest you should lose your way. But Isabel, it is not you, but I that have indeed strayed from my road, and if you will not deign to lead me back I fear me I am lost for ever. Beautiful, beautiful Isabella, listen one moment; nay, do not turn your head away, nor beat the earth so proudly angry with that small foot; listen, for I must speak. I cannot be confined, and cribbed, and fettered by their confounded rules of convenance, and I must speak and be answered. I adore you; words cannot speak my adoration; and you

--

know it, yes, well you know it, Isabella,--and you have smiled on me, and seemed not wholly to despise my suit. Speak then, speak, Isabella, and say can you not love me? will you not be mine?"

The moment she had recognised the voice, Alice grasped Henriette by the arm so rigidly, that instantly she comprehended what was passing; and when her cousin would have risen, detained her quietly, yet by a hold so firm, that she could not escape from it without creating so much noise as would have reached the ears of the others.

A second or two followed before any answer was returned by the girl, and there was a sound that might have been either that of weeping, or of suppressed laughter; but when she spoke her voice was clear and silvery, and, perhaps, even pitched somewhat higher than before. "Yes," she said, "Major Wyvill, I will be quite frank with you-1 have perceived your attentions-nay, chafe not-your love if you will-and I will not say that I have perceived them altogether with indifference--but ere I give my love I must be certain. And I am not quite certain, sir-I have heard something whispered of love passages in England-something of a fair girl who rescued Captain Wyvill from strange peril, and loved, and was loved in return-methinks."

"Mere talk," Marmaduke answered, interrupting her-" mere empty idle slander, uttered by fools who know not, or knaves who care not, what they publish. Nay-dearest, loveliest Isabella-I swear to you that my whole heart is yours-yours only-and for ever! Why she-she was the merest country girl-I never thought of her."

"Enough," whispered Alice vehemently, "I will hear no more," and starting to her feet, she hurried out of the little arbour before Henriette had time to hinder her.

Ay, and that was enough for poor Alice. From that day she began to droop.

We must not disclose the sequel of the story, which now becomes more complicated and interesting. Neither do we speak further of the manner of the maid's revenge, than to say that it is refined, nor more of the denouement generally than that it is accordant with poetical justice at least towards the faithless cavalier.

Miss Costello's Gabrielle is also of the nature of a romance of the historical class, dealing with the scenery and chronicles of France in the manner of one familiar with them; nay, as if her sojourns and sympathies were almost engrossed by the elements which the wilder parts of the country, as well as the more dazzling passages of its courtly annals furnish. The period chosen is that of the Grand Monarche when the splendour, intrigue, and vice of the palace and the capital may be said to have reached their summit; when Paris was thronged by the heartless and profligate from all quarters; and when the power of the aristocracy in the more distant provinces exhibited the least scrupulous features of feudal arrogance. The historical characters introduced besides Louis the Fourteenth and the Queen, are De Fontages, De Montespan, and De Maintenon,

De Grammont, young De Sevigné, the Physician Fagon, Ninon de l'Enclos, with numerous others, real as well as fancied. Much of the story is taken up with the pomps of Paris, and the intrigues and fortunes of the three mistresses. To this same department may be assigned the schemings of Lomaria, -a Breton noble, and the villain of the fiction,-to procure a wife with a fortune. The contrasted and more romantic portion, intended to relieve the formalities of busy idleness and polished depravity at Paris, give us a tale of bigamy; Gabrielle, the daughter of a hotel keeper being beheld and beloved by Count de Mezeraye, but under the disguise of an artist. A marriage takes place, and he passes the principal part of his time with the innocent and beautiful girl, pleading regimental business to his prior wife as the reason of his absence. The end, however, is not joyous. We must not omit mentioning that the tale of a gipsy hero is intertwined with both parts of the story, but without any necessity; just as other tales are foisted in to the marring and confusion of the fiction.

The faults of the work are,-bad construction, and want of naturalness in regard to situation, incident, character, and speech. It is an artificial affair from beginning to end; but felt to be so much more when read as a whole, than when any one of the stop-stories is alone read. On the other hand Miss Costello excels in description, in her knowledge of manners, and in her display of intimacy with French annals, costume, and personal passages. Her literature too is graceful, though lifeless rather than animated, just as are her conceptions and sentiments.

The courtiers and court of Louis the Fourteenth do not appear to be particularly well adapted for romantic fiction, supposing that the novelist intends to keep pretty near to the truth both of character and incident. One cannot sympathize with persons and scenes where utter heartlessness, unceasing envyings, and struggling intrigue were the elements of thought and occupation; unless indeed we except the cold levities of the wittier spirits as some relief. At any rate Miss Costello has not the original genius or the acquired skill to be faithful in her portraiture of forbidding and reluctant subjects, and at the same time to excite an interest in them. But we must give some examples; and shall select two of the best, because being much of the nature of separate, distinct, and complete tales, they do not involve a critical examination of the larger constructive power, or questions relative to consistency and probability.

We first extract a scene where Gabrielle and a bevy of the courtiers figure. She has come to Paris to petition for Mezeraye's pardon. This purpose has reached the ears of the worthless clique; and for their amusement they contrive to bewilder the earnest suppliant, and to deceive her by a mock audience. De Grammont personates the King; and the scene is enacted at Ninon's :

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