In Which Ferdinand Armine Is Much Concerned.

THE contingency which Glastonbury feared, surely happened; Miss Grandison insisted upon immediately rushing to her Ferdinand; and as the maiden aunt was still an invalid, and was incapable of enduring the fatigues of a rapid and anxious journey, she was left behind. Within a few hours of the receipt of Glastonbury’s letter, Sir Ratcliffe and Lady Armine, and their niece, were on their way. They found letters from Glastonbury in London, which made them travel to Armine even through the night.

In spite of all his remedies, the brain fever which the physician foresaw had occurred; and when his family arrived, the life of Ferdinand was not only in danger but desperate. It was impossible that even the parents could see their child, and no one was allowed to enter his chamber but his nurse, the physician, and occasionally Glastonbury; for this name, with others less familiar to the household, sounded so often on the frenzied lips of the sufferer, that it was recommended that Glastonbury should often be at his bedside. Yet he must leave it, to receive the wretched Sir Ratcliffe and his wife and their disconsolate companion. Never was so much unhappiness congregated together under one roof; and yet, perhaps Glastonbury, though the only one who retained the least command over himself, was, with his sad secret, the most woe-begone of the tribe.

As for Lady Armine, she sat without the door of her son’s chamber the whole day and night, clasping a crucifix in her hands, and absorbed in silent prayer. Sir Ratcliffe remained below prostrate. The unhappy Katherine in vain offered the consolation she herself so needed; and would have wandered about that Armine of which she had heard so much, and where she was to have been so happy, a forlorn and solitary being, had it not been for the attentions of the considerate Glastonbury, who embraced every opportunity of being her companion. His patience, his heavenly resignation, his pious hope, his vigilant care, his spiritual consolation, occasionally even the gleams of agreeable converse with which he attempted to divert her mind, consoled and mainta............