WHEN the first violence of this paroxysm of sorrow abated, Camilla again strove to pray, and found that nothing so much stilled her. Yet, her faculties confused, hurried, and in anguish, permitted little more than incoherent ejaculations. Again she sighed for her Father; again the spirit of his instructions recurred, and she enquired who was the clergyman of the parish, and if he would be humane enough to come and pray by one who had no claim upon him as a parishioner.

Peggy said he was a very good gentleman, and never refused even the poorest person, that begged his attendance.

‘O go to him, then,’ cried she, ‘directly! Tell him a sick and helpless stranger implores that he will read to her the prayers for the dying!... Should I yet live... they will compose and make me better;-if not... they will give me courage for my quick exit.’

Peggy went forth, and she lay her beating head upon the pillow, and endeavoured to quiet her nerves for the sacred ceremony she demanded.

It was dark, and she was alone; the corpse she had just quitted seemed still bleeding in full view. She closed her eyes, but still saw it; she opened them, but it was always there. She felt nearly stiff with horrour, chilled, frozen, with speechless apprehension.

A slumber, feverish nearly to delirium, at length surprised her harassed faculties; but not to afford them rest. Death, in a visible figure, ghastly, pallid, severe, appeared before her, and with its hand, sharp and forked, struck abruptly upon her breast. She screamed-but it was heavy as cold, and she could not remove it. She trembled; she shrunk from its touch; but it had iced her heart-strings. Every vein was congealed; every stiffened limb stretched to its full length, was hard as marble: and when again she made a feeble effort to rid her oppressed lungs of the dire weight that had fallen upon them, a voice hollow, deep, and distant, dreadfully pierced her ear, calling out: ‘Thou hast but thy own wish! Rejoice, thou murmurer, for thou diest!’ Clearer, shriller, another voice quick vibrated in the air: ‘Whither goest thou,’ it cried, ‘and whence comest thou?’

A voice from within, over which she thought she had no controul, though it seemed issuing from her vitals, low, hoarse, and tremulous, answered, ‘Whither I go, let me rest! Whence I come from let me not look back! Those who gave me birth, I have deserted; my life, my vital powers I have rejected.’ Quick then another voice assailed her, so near, so loud, so terrible... she shrieked at its horrible sound. ‘Prematurely,’ it cried, ‘thou art come, uncalled, unbidden; thy task unfulfilled, thy peace unearned. Follow, follow me! the Records of Eternity are opened. Come! write with thy own hand thy claims, thy merits to mercy!’ A repelling self-accusation instantaneously overwhelmed her. ‘O, no! no! no!’ she exclaimed, ‘let me not sign my own miserable insufficiency!’ In vain was her appeal. A force unseen, yet irresistible, impelled her forward. She saw the immense volumes of Eternity, and her own hand involuntarily grasped a pen of iron, and with a velocity uncontroulable wrote these words: ‘Without resignation, I have prayed for death: from impatience of displeasure, I have desired annihilation: to dry my own eyes, I have left... pitiless, selfish, unnatural!... a Father the most indulgent, a Mother almost idolizing, to weep out their’s !’ Her head would have sunk upon the guilty characters; but her eyelids refused to close, and kept them glaring before her. They became, then, illuminated with burning sulphur. She looked another way; but they partook of the same motion; she cast her eyes upwards, but she saw the characters still; she turned from side to side; but they were always her object. Loud again sounded the same direful voice: ‘These are thy deserts; write now thy claims:-and next,-and quick,-turn over the immortal leaves, and read thy doom–Oh, no!’ she cried, ‘Oh, no!’... ‘O, let me yet return! O, Earth, with all thy sorrows, take, take me once again, that better I may learn to work my way to that last harbour, which rejecting the criminal repiner, opens its soft bosom to the firm, though supplicating sufferer!’ In vain again she called;-pleaded, knelt, wept in vain. The time, she found, was past; she had slighted it while in her power; it would return to her no more; and a thousand voices at once, with awful vibration, answered aloud to every prayer, ‘Death was thy own desire!’ Again, unlicensed by her will, her hand seized the iron instrument. The book was open that demanded her claims. She wrote with difficulty... but saw that her pen made no mark! She looked upon the page, when she thought she had finished,... but the paper was blank!... Voices then, by hundreds, by thousands, by millions, from side to side, above, below, around, called out, echoed and re-echoed, ‘Turn over,............