The clock struck one; about five minutes afterwards Cromwell had closed

the door of his chamber; the half-hour chimed. Constance was looking on

her father, sleeping calmly in his chair, in a closet that opened into

his favourite library. He had not been in bed for several nights, and,

since his afflicting insanity, could seldom be prevailed on to enter his

own room. After pausing a few minutes, while her lips appeared to move

with the prayer her heart so fervently formed, she undid the bolt,

quietly opened the door, then partially closed it, and left her wretched

parent alone with his physician.

She could hear within the library, in which she now stood, the heavy

breathings of the afflicted man. A large lamp was burning on the massive

oak-table: it shed a cheerful light, but it was a light too cheerful for

her troubled and feverish spirit--she sank upon a huge carved chair, and

passed her small hand twice or thrice over her brow, where heavy drops

had gathered; then drew towards her the large Bible that had been her

mother's. On the first page, in the hand-writing of that beloved mother,

was registered the day of her marriage, and underneath the births of her

several children, with a short and thanksgiving prayer affixed to each;

a little lower down came a mournful register, the dates and manner of

her sons' deaths; but the Christian spirit that had taught her words and

prayers of gratitude, had been with her in the time of trouble; the

passages were penned in true humility and humble-mindedness, though the

blisterings of many tears remained upon the paper.

Constantia turned over the leaves more carelessly than was her custom;

but her eye dwelt upon one of the beautiful promises, given with so much

natural poetry by the great Psalmist,--"I have been young, and now am

old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their

bread." "Alas!" she thought, "I can derive only half consolation from

such as this. One of my parents was indeed righteous; but, alas! what

has the other been?" She bowed her head upon the book, and did not again

raise it, until a soft hand touched her shoulder, and a light voice

whispered "Constance!"

It was Lady Frances Cromwell.

"My dear Constantia! here's a situation! I never knew any thing so

provoking, so tantalising! My father, they say, has taken as many as

twenty prisoners, of one sort or another; and has caged them up in that

purple-room with himself, examining into and searching out every

secret--secrets I want so much to know. He has got the Buccaneer, they

say."




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