decided and impetuous character rendered him, indeed, impatient of suspense, and sensitive to any impending and undefined danger; but it no sooner assumed a distinct form, than he eyed it undismayed, and prepared himself to encounter it with a manly fortitude. While the attack of the distemper was uncertain, while there was a chance of escaping from the house, his apprehensions were keen, his eagerness for flight incessant; but now that there was no hope of avoiding the one, or effecting the other, the painful excitement of his mind subsided into resignation, and he gave over all thoughts of struggling with his inevitable fate. To the nurse, indeed, his antipathy remained unconquerable; and, as some hours elapsed without her appearance, he began to hope that he should be suffered to perish without being revolted by her hateful presence.

During this interval his thoughts reverted often and painfully to the beautiful, the vivacious, the fascinating, Julia Strickland, whose

joyous soul, diffusing sunshine all around it, contrasted fearfully with the gloom of his present situation, and the character of the sepulchral hag, whose ministerings he was fated to endure. It was as if he looked back upon the bright visions of Paradise, from the very depths of doom and despair. That he should think of her at all, at such a moment, proved to him how deeply she was rooted in his heart; while it embittered his regret, to reflect, that if he had followed the dictates of a more generous, and world-defying feeling, by making her his wife, he would, in all probability, have ensured his permanent happiness, and would certainly have avoided the loathsome and premature death with which he was now threatened.

While he was lost in these reveries of a felicity, which he reproached himself with having so wantonly thrown away, he was disturbed by the entrance of the nurse, who came to inform him that the landlady had just breathed her last, and that from the appearance of the remaining

maid, it was doubtful whether she would hold out through the night; adding, that if his disorder did not exhibit some favourable turn, of which she saw no symptoms at present, there was likely to be a clear house by the morrow, or the next day at farthest. At the conclusion of this unfeeling speech, she placed a potion by his bedside, which, she said, had been ordered by the physician, and at his earnest solicitation that she would attend to her patient up stairs, and leave him to his fate, she sullenly quitted his apart

ment.

Again was the unfortunate Jocelyn doomed to listen to the same sickening sounds, as on the night before; while the body of the landlady was carried down to the plague-cart, and wheeled away to the undistinguishing receptacles of the dead; and again were his early slumbers broken by the nauseous and revolting creations of a diseased body and a distempered fancy. Towards the morning, however, he obtained some more refreshing sleep; and, although his debility re

mained unabated, he could not help imagining, when he awoke, that there was some little subsiding in his disorder. A faint ray of hope sprung up in his heart, and he eagerly awaited the arrival of the physician, trusting to receive from him some confirmation of a favourable change having occurred. While he was nourishing these pleasant auguries, the ill-featured and ill-omened nurse came to disperse them, by croaking in his ear that the second maid had just departed; and that, a little before her death, she had experienced exactly similar sensations of imaginary convales"The physician, who will shortly be here," said Jocelyn, " will be enabled to pronounce better than I can myself, and, till his arrival, I will dispense with your attendance."

cence.

"Marry, come up!" cried the woman, with a scowling look, "there be many would rather have the room than the company of a fellow in the plague; I have no one else to attend now, and so I shall suit my own convenience." She disappeared, slamming the door after her, and

while Jocelyn was waiting the arrival of the physician, with an impatience generated by returning hope, he thought he heard her, at times, opening the closets, and pulling out the drawers in the room above him. Hour after hour dragged heavily on; and yet the physician came not, a circumstance at which he expressed his surprise to the nurse, when she next made her appearance. "There is nothing surprising in the matter,” she replied; many of the doctors ran away in the first instance; many who had determined to remain, are daily taking flight, and following them: some are carried off by the plague, and the few that remain, have so many patients to attend, that you are never sure of them. It is quite too late to expect him to-day. Perhaps he may look in to-morrow, but I doubt whether you will hold out so long."

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During the utterance of this consolatory opinion, she made arrangements in the grate, as if for the purpose of lighting a fire. "Good hea

vens !" exclaimed Jocelyn, "you are not, surely,