future destiny, the light and the figure had suddenly vanished. That supernatural being, who, as I have reason to think, was the ghost of an unfortunate ancestress, had already announced that you must die at the ninth hour, three days before that appointed for your wedding. Seraphina intended to put the question, whether, by avoiding every such engagement, your life could be saved? Alas, no answer to this question can now be obtained, yet it is my conviction, that, on the path to the altar, you can only arrive at your own destruction. However, I left you no positive injunctions against marriage, because I knew not, if, by this means, your death could have been averted. Think what you ought to do, if it be not already too late. Should it be possible for my spirit to return to the world, I shall hover near you, when these lines are first read.’”
Florentine folded up the letter in silence, and a long pause of painful reflection occurred, before another word was uttered by any one. At length she resumed, “From the day on which I perused this letter, must be dated that change in my disposition, for which you, my dear friends, have some-
