Thus things went on in the busy world
abroad, and at home in the quiet vale of
Ingleborough, until some few days after
the deadly fight and desperate defeat at
Long Marston.

Autumn had come again—brown autum—
and Annabel, now in her garden
tending her flowers, and listening to her
birds, and thinking of the past, not with
the keen and piercing anguish of a present
sorrow, but with the mellow recollection
of an old regret. She stood beside
the stream—the stream that all unchanged
itself had witnessed such sad changes in
all that was around it—close to the spot
where she had talked so long with Marian
on that eventful morning, when a quick,
soft step came behind her; she turned,
and Marian clasped her!

No words can describe the feelings of
the sisters as they met; and it was not
till after many a fond embrace, and many
a burst of tears, that Marian told her that
how, after years of sufferance, compelled
at last to fly from the outrageous cruelty
of him, for whom she had thrown up all
but honor, she now came home—home,
like the hunted hare to her form, like the
wounded bird to her nest—she now came
home to die. “What could it boot,” she
said, “to repeat the old and oft-told tale,”
how eager passion made way for uncertain
and oft-interrupted gleams of fondness—
how a love founded on no esteem
or real principles, melted like wax before
the fire—how inattention paved the way
for neglect, and infidelity came close behind,
and open profligacy, and bold insult,
and cool, maddened outrage followed.
How the ardent lover became the careless
husband, the cold master, the unfeeling
tyrant, and at last the brutal despot.”

Marian came home to die—the seeds of
that invincible disease were sown deep in
her bosom; her exquisitely rounded shape
was angular and thin, emaciated by disease,
and suffering, and sorrow. A burning
hectic spot on either cheek were now
the only remnants of that once all-radiant
complexion; her step so slow and falter
ing, her breath drawn sob by sob with actual
agony, her quick, short cough, all told
too certainly the truth! Her faults were
punished bitterly on earth, and happily
that punishment had worked its fitting end—
these faults were all repented, were all
amended now. Perhaps at no time of her
youthful bloom had Marian been so sweet,
so truly lovely, as now when her young
days were numbered.

All the asperity and harshness, the angles
as it were of her character, mellowed
down into a calm and unrepining cheerfulness.
And oh! with what delicious tenderness
did Annabel console, and pray
with, and caress her—oh! they were, indeed,
happy! indeed happy for those last
months, those lovely sisters. For Annabel's
delight at seeing the dear Marian
of happier and better days once more beside
her, in their old chamber, beside her
in the quiet garden, beside her in the pew
of the old village church, had, for the time,
completely overpowered her fears for her
sister's health, and as is almost invariably
the case in that most fatal, most insidious
of disorders, she constantly was flattered
with vain hopes that Marian was amending,
that the next spring would see her
again well and happy. Vain hopes! indeed
vain hopes; but which of mortal
hopes is other?

The cold mists of November were on
the hills and in the glens of Wharfdale;
the trees were stripped of their last leaves,
the grass was sere and withered, the
earth cheerless, the skies comfortless,
when, at the same predestined window,
the sisters sat watching the last gleam of
the wintry sun fade on the distant hill-top.
What was that flash far up the road?
That round and ringing report? Another!
and another! the evident reports of musketry.
And lo! a horseman flying—a wild
fierce troop pursuing—the foremost rides
bareheaded, but the blue scarf that flutters
in the air, shows him a loyal cavalier; the
steel caps and jack-boots of the pursuers,
point them out, evidently, Puritans; there
are but twenty of them, and lo! the fugitive
gains on them—Heaven! he turns
from the highroad! crosses the steep
bridge at a gallop! he takes the park gate
at a leap! he cuts across the turf! and lo!
the dalesmen and the tenants have mustered
to resist—a short, fierce struggle!
the roundheads are beaten back! the fugitive,
now at the very hall doors, is preserved.
The door flew open; he staggered
into the well-known vestibule, opened
the parlor-door with an accustomed

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

hand, and reeled into the presence of the
sisters exhausted with fatigue, pale from
the loss of blood, faint with his mortal
wounds—yet he spoke out, in a clearvoice,

“In time, in time, thank God! in time
to make some reparation, to ask for pardon,
ere I die!”

And with these words, De Vaux, for he
it was, staggered up to his injured wife,
and, dropping on his knees, cast his arms
round her waist, and burying his head in
her lap, exclaimed, in faltering tones,

“Pardon me, Marian, pardon me, before
I die; pardon me, as you loved me once!”

“Oh! as I love you now, dear Ernest;
fully, completely, gladly do I pardon you,
and take you to my heart, never again to
part, my own dear husband.”

“Groaning, she clasped him close, and in that
act
And agony her happy spirit fled.”

Annabel saw her head fall on his neck,
and fancying that she had fainted, ran to
uplift her; but, ere she had time to do so,
both were beyond the reach of any mortal
sorrow; nor did she, the survivor, long
survive them; she faded like a fair flower,
and lies beside them in the still bosom of
one common tomb. The hall was tenanted
no more, and soon fell into ruin; but
the wild hills of Wharfdale must themselves
pass away, before the children of
the dalesman shall forget the sad tale of
the Sisters.