memory haunted but by one image. Days, weeks elapsed, and Adalbert returned not—her sleep was broken by a thousand fanciful terrors; but one fear had taken possession of her mother Ursaline’s mind—that the stranger was false; and bitterly did she lament that she had ever intrusted him with the happiness of her precious child.
"And yet I did it for the best!" she would piteously exclaim, whenever her eye fell on the pale cheek of her daughter.
"He is come, my mother!" exclaimed Theresa, bounding one evening into the cottage with a long-unaccustomed lightness of heart and step. Though eager to spring down the path and meet him, yet, amid all the forgetfulness of joy, she had bethought her of her aged parent, and returned that she too might share the happiness of their meeting. They hurried out, and three horsemen were riding up the valley—one much in advance of the others.
"Mother, it is a stranger!" with difficulty articulated Theresa, and, sick at heart, clung to her arm for support.
The rider was full in sight, when, with a shriek that roused her daughter, Ursaline exclaimed, "Now the blessed saints be good unto us, but it is my old master—I should know him amid a thousand!"
The words were scarcely uttered, when the horseman dismounted at a rough part of the road, and, flinging his bridle to his attendants, approached alone. He was a tall, stately, and austere-looking
