by the sword demanded by the scaffold,—and for what? The tumult was over, and all things returned to their old place; and the abuse remained without remedy, and the wrong without redress. Ah! if the doctrine of amelioration be true, what a mighty debt does the future owe to the past! And alas for those who have gone before! Methinks the struggle has been but ill repaid.
Evelyn pursued his way through the forest, often pausing to note its familiar beauty. The sky was of that faint blue which, together with the thin white clouds flitting over it, indicate a change about to take place in the atmosphere, as if the present calm were too spiritual to last. The germ, not the leaf, was on the bough: but the boughs alone cast a deep shadow around, save when some fair glade was filled with moonlight, and the ground shone silvery and tremulous; for the beam on the long grass had an effect like water.
More than once, through an opening in the outskirt, he caught sight of a shadowy outline on the air, and knew the turrets of his old ancestral halls. "How many of my fathers," thought he, "Have dwelt there in glad security, while I, the last of their name, wander proscribed on a soil once their own! Ah, Francesca! we could have been very happy to have dwelt beloved within those
