CHAPTER VI.

"For my revenges were high bent upon him, And watch'd the time to shoot."

Shakspeare.

DURING the second day's journey, matters proceeded much as they had done throughout the first; certainly they were in no degree ameliorated: the brutality and fierceness of Wolfstein rather increased than diminished, and was moreover varied by occasional fits of fondling, not a whit less irksome or insulting; and these transitions were so sudden as to resemble the caprice of insanity, insomuch that Madame de Wolfsteïn began half to suspect that the cruel treatment she endured had its source in mental derangement. Nothing could exceed the wild and almost terrific sublimity of the road they travelled; and in happier days,

Louisa's enthusiasm for the grander features of nature would have been indulged to the utmost by such a journey; but now she beheld the landscape with a passive, frozen gaze, neither delighted by the beautiful, nor affected by the awful. Now they wound through rich and verdant valleys, the nests of many a little peaceful hamlet, whose inhabitants were cutting or training the vines which extended far along the sunny slopes of the hills that sheltered their cottages; now they made their way through wide and leafy soli tudes, whose glades stretched for miles, beneath the embowering branches of the pine, the oak, or the beech. Sometimes they would find themselves hanging, as it were, on the ridge of some stupendous precipice, from whose side tumbled the frequent and deafening torrent, hastening to augment with its tributary waters the river which rolled far beneath within its rocky channel. As she crossed the alpine bridge which rocked and creaked

under the carriage, Louisa would cast a vague, desponding glance on the scarce fathomable abyss over which they were suspended: she did not, as she once would have done, lift the crucifix to her lips and breathe a prayer that Heaven would protect her through the dangerous pass; on the contrary, an indefinite notion that it might prove the goal of her hopeless pilgrimage would cross her bewildered thoughts.

As the evening drew on, they arrived at a lonely post-house, from whence some slight and rude refreshment was brought to the superior travellers, while the domestics made the necessary changes of cattle, and other arrangements for proceeding. The moon was beautiful, and nearly at the full; nevertheless each horseman now provided himself with a pine torch dipt in pitch. Louisa mechanically inquired the motive of this illumination, and was answered with somewhat more than usual civility

"To protect us from the wolves, which probably will beset us on a plain about half a league from hence: they attack in bodies, and it behoves travellers to be on the alert against them."

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She now perceived that this was not the sole precaution adopted against the approaching danger, for several wolfhounds, which had been led in the rear of the retinue, were now brought forward, and set at liberty, their hoarse baying resembling nearly that of the animal they were designed to combat.

"Are you frightened, Louisa ?"

"Not much, Sir Warbeck," she replied with a faint smile.

"Not much!" echoed he contemptu, ously; "I begin to perceive I have married an alabaster doll :-if you are not afraid of wolves, you are no woman! Perhaps you are so inaccessible to all human infirmities, that you may deem my ad vice to put on your pelisse superfluous; -though it has been hitherto warm, you

will find it cold enough presently, and such transitions are dangerous."

This recommendation, though not very graciously made, was rather an improvement, and Louisa lost no time in wrapping herself in her Polish cloak.

Now, go to sleep if you can," was the next counsel, "for we shall hardly halt again before the dawn.".

At the same time stretching out his limbs, closing his eyes, and drawing his cap over his face, he disposed himself to set her the example: she was, however, employed too busily in the wretched exercise of thought, to cherish a hope of such blessed forgetfulness. They crossed the skirts of the perilous plain, where the retinue halted, and formed themselves into a closer body, the carriages in the centre, the dogs ranging wide, but obey. ing the voice or the whistle, and the horsemen loading the pistols, which they placed ready primed in their belts, and waving their blazing torches. At length