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Days and days Maud sat by the fever-bed of her friend, his life hanging by a thread, and the grim gates of death swung back to receive him; but Maud had been taught some rare secrets of nature: and magic potions, brewed under strict conditions of the moon and the compass, with holy prayers repeated reverently over them, and charms and spells-muttered spells of the whispering voice, and shadowy spells of the waving hand, love and watchfulness-these restored Paul; and Maud was rewarded by his recovery.

Paul. When the low wind sighed among the reeds, in | her tears fell on the boy's forehead and mingled with his another moment to sound the death-dirge of the hapless boy, the gipsy Maud rushed through the wood, and plunging into the river, caught the drowning youth. She drew him to shore, and placed him on the grass; she laid his head on her lap, and wrung his dark chestnut hair; she chafed his hands, and warmed his heart beneath her own: and she breathed back into his lips the sacred gift of life. A sigh, a convulsive start, a shudder that ran from head to heel, and Paul opened his eyes to fix them on the dusky face that looked down on his, tending him faithfully—a dusky face, set round with jet-black hair, with eyes that told plainly enough what was her outcast lineage-her Bohemian race-yet tender, loving, mild, and pure as the face of an angela face that one would have prayed for to be one's comforter in illness, and to whose mercy the fondest mother would have given up her children.

"Maud, Maud!" sobbed Paul, "oh, you do not know how my heart is broken!" He turned his weary head in her lap, and buried it like a child in her gown, weeping passionately. All the nerve and sinew of his manhood had gone; and as he lay there, Maud felt more like the mother of some grieving child than the sister of a sorrowing man; yet this maternal instinct made her more indulgent and more kind.

"Hush!" she said; "I know all."

"No, no, Maud! you cannot know all; no one but myself can really know what a fearful game of cruelty and deception has been played against me-played against a heart of love, Maud, whose only fault was its trust. Oh, you cannot know all !"

"Yes, Paul; for I have been with you through every hour of this day of agony. I watched you through the wood; I tracked you silently, and followed your footsteps faithfully and patiently, knowing that a time would come when I should be useful to you. And now, I tell you, knowing all, that you must be brave, my friend, and patient."

"Brave! patient! Maud, these are only words!" "Something more than that, Paul. Look up, boy, into the sky above-are there no truths there, no joys in knowledge and in religion, that you should fling away your life for the heartless words of a mocking girl? Has nature no stores of healing even for a love betrayed? learning no harbors of refuge even for a heart wrecked? You have not lost all in losing even Eva, beautiful as she is. No life has but one venture, and that a wreck, while a star shines above the clouds, or a flower blossoms on the sands; or while one human heart lies stricken with sorrows which human sympathy can soften; one throbbing head lies low with disease, which human hands can soothe. While there is a secret of nature to learn, or a kindly office to fulfill, no one can say: 'My anguish is incurable.' Do these words sound cold and hard now, my boy? You will find them true when this storm has passed by."

"Cold and hard!" groaned Paul; "they are stones instead of bread-death instead of life."

Maud made no answer. She lifted his head on her lap, and laid it on her bosom; and once, and once only,

One day the rattle of carriages past Paul's casement, and the loud ringing of the Oakenden bells, brought a sudden fit of anguish-such as Maud had never seen since the first wrenching away of his hopes by Eva's cruel words. "What is that, Maud ?" he asked; his lips quivering, and his nervous hand clutching at the empty air. Maud changed color. "O Maud! do you not deceive me too!” cried the poor boy.

"No, Paul, I will not deceive you."
"Then speak quick-quick!"

"There are things sometimes best left unspoken, Paul," she said tenderly.

"No, no, Maud! the truth always."
"At its right time, dear boy."

"Now, now, Maud!" The bells rang louder, the village children screamed and laughed, and the horses pranced and neighed. All this tumult was borne on the morning air into the sick-chamber. "Tell me, Maud."

“It is a marriage, my friend.”

"A marriage!"-he spoke with a kind of calm despair-"whose?" She did not answer. "Whose?" he cried, seizing her arm. His eyes were wild, and his voice almost fierce; his gesture was fierce as well. "One you know of, Paul."

"Her name?"

"Why do you ask it? You know as well as I that Eva's marriage-bells are ringing!"

"Eva! Eva!" shrieked the boy; and then he fell back, the blood flowing over his lip, and his whole body racked by strong convulsions.

When Maud wiped the blood from his lips, Eva, in another scene, placed her hand in that of Charles Rollestone, and said, in her calm sweet voice, "I will," when Dr. Mathison asked her, according to the formula, if she would have him for her husband. But not once that day did Eva remember the youth she had so betrayed; not once, in her wedding glory, came the faintest glow of feeling for him; not the shadow of sympathy, of pity, or regret.

The agitation of this new trial brought back all Paul's fever, and for many days and weeks he was again on the threshold of the grave. But Maud snatched him from this new danger, as she had preserved him from the first, and once more restored him to his art and life.

All Oakenden was in arms. It was thought a very bold thing on Maud's part, that she should have nursed Paul Desprez through an illness. But Maud let them

talk as they would, and went on tending and caring for poor Paul, just as if there was no world in Oakenden to oriticise and malign.

Maud's great amusement had been-although it was a foolish one to encourage in Oakenden the idea of her witchcraft. Many a thing which had gained her her questionable reputation, had been done out of the love of fun and mischief, rather than inadvertently; although she never expected the large amount of sorrow which befell her as a consequence of this reputation. She trusted more to the goodness than she feared the folly of men, and never thought it possible that human hearts should be closed because social prejudices were shocked. The gipsy Maud knew more of botany and entomology than she did of English society or English ideas. If she had had more of what the world calls common sense, she would have never placed herself in such a false position; but then, if the people at Oakenden had had more discernment than prejudice, they would have understood her better, and would not have transformed dissimilarity into crime.

After all, her escapades were not very heinous. She used to dress in a singular manner-her gowns made, as they said, like pictures; then she used to go out at night, because she had sundry ideas of hours and positions in the gathering of her herbs and simples; and then she used to say odd out-of-the-way things when they teased her, and used to look awful, and mutter threats, and endeavor to indemnify herself by their terror for the cruelty of her tormentors; and then she lived alone in the haunted Hollow, and was afraid of nothing; and, chief of all, she was more clever than any of the Oakenden people; and this was the list of poor Maud's misdoings!

Poor Maud! At first, she was merely amused at seeing the terror in which she was held; but when she found that every heart was cold, and every door closed against her, she acknowledged the mistake she had made, and would sometimes, when not very willful, have undone the past if possible. But she trusted to the power of time; and went on, doing her kindly duties diligently. If a neighbor's child fell sick, Maud would spare herself no trouble-she would sit up at night with the poor mother, or to give her some hours of rest, while she nursed the little one; she would think nothing of miles and hours if she could but find some rare herb on the moor which would do the sufferer good. If any one was wanted, Maud would be the messenger, and as she went more swiftly than any one else, the country people used to accept the convenience and vilify the mode, always believing that she went on her errands of Christian charity in some most unchristian fashion. Yet still she was not appreciated nor understood; and her life had grown into a wild loneliness, wherein her love, sown broadcast as it might be, was all cast back, harvestless, on herself.

It may easily be imagined, then, what, under such conditions, Paul became to Maud. She used to be startled herself, sometimes, at the happiness she had centred on him, and ask herself, and wonder, what he would do with a love he perhaps neither knew of nor

returned. And yet she used to fancy he loved her. It was not that his manners were in anything what they had been to Eva; they were neither passionate nor poetic; neither absorbed nor excited. But they were so intensely calm, with such an atmosphere of peace and repose about them when Maud was there, that she could not fail to see the change. If she left the room, he was restless, sad, uneasy; when she returned, he was like a nursing child restored to its mother. He would sleep sometimes for hours when she was sitting by him, not for an instant if she was away. And when he grew stronger, they used to sit by the casement, talking for long hours together over deeper things than mere youthful sentiment, over thoughts, and feelings, and aspirations that made the life of both. He was always so attentive to what she said, so respectful, so docile—that noble kind of manly docility which is so sweet a thing, and so purifying for women to receive. And he used to adopt her opinions one by one, fighting hard sometimes, and sometimes yielding suddenly, till she laughed and called him her pupil, and said she would make something grand of him at last. And Maud, who was no self-deceiver, and would rather have heard the bitterest truth than lived in the most enchanting falsehood, pondered over all these things diligently, asking herself whether they meant a sick man's gratitude, or a strong man's love. But she never received a clear response from either her hopes or her fears, so she was fain to leave to time the unloosing of her life's problem.

When Eva heard of Maud's care for Paul, and how all the world said they were to be married as soon as the artist was sufficiently strong to be carried to church for they all declared he was bewitched-she put on an incredulous look, and said abruptly: "Paul Desprez marry Maud of the Hollow? he has stooped low after soaring high !"

Paul was weak and faint yet, and to sit in the autumn sunsets was all he could do; with purple grapes, the rich red leaves overshadowing them, and the golden bloom of apricots beside him.

"How is it, Maud, that I did not think you beautiful?" asked Paul suddenly one day.

"Because I am not beautiful," answered Maud calmly. But she felt the blood come in her cheek, and another light than the one now in it, steal into her eye. "Is that modesty or affectation, Maud?" Paul asked laughingly.

"Neither, my friend."

"It must be. You are beautiful."

"Do you think so? I am deformed." Though this last speech was said very quietly, a bystander would have seen from the quivering lip and the sudden straining of the nerves how much it cost Maud to make that confession.

"No, no!" exclaimed Paul, vehemently. "I cannot believe it!"

The gipsy smiled. boy. When you first Was it not so?"

"You saw it once, I believe, my knew me, you were aware of it.

"Oh," he answered impatiently, "I was all blind

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"You shall judge, then, for yourself." She stood up before him and the slanting shadow on the ground, elongated and exaggerated, showed an evident deformity. "I grant this is an exaggeration," she then said, quietly reseating herself "but it is an exaggeration of the truth only; it is not a falsehood."

"Why did you tell me this?" cried Paul, mournfully. "I had begun to believe you beautiful, and I was so happy in that belief!" He spoke as if something had had been taken from him.

"Child in mind yet!" said Maud inwardly, caressing his hair; "and yet how women love the very men they accuse of childishness! And shall I cease to be your friend," she said aloud, "because I carry a little more flesh on my right shoulder than on my left? If you value me at all, is it for anything but my heart and mind? If not for these, then for what? You would not surely that I should trust to the sincerity of a friendship sown on the shifting sands of a fair skin and symmetrical form? If so, a fever caught by the bedside of a dying mother, or a fall from a height when protecting a wandering child, would destroy it without hope. No, Paul, friendship must be built on surer foundations than these."

Paul did not answer; nor that day, nor the next, nor the next again, did he refer to the subject. But he was much lost in thought, and sat often watching Maud stealthily, when he thought she did not see him; and then he would lean back in his chair, and close his eyes, and remain there, absorbed in some deep reflections, perhaps for many hours.

"Maud, you loved Horace once in your life?" They were sitting in the doorway, the feathers of the clematis round them.

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'No, never!" There was a pause

"But when I first came to Oakenden, you seemed to me to love him," returned Paul, dissatisfied.

"You mistook," Maud answered simply; and she continued her task, stringing great gold beads into a necklace. After a time, she added: "I could never love what I did not esteem. Horace is to me but a glorious case enclosing a worthless jewel. I thought him beautiful always-as, indeed, who would not? But I loved him never, because I found no resting-place for my soul in his heart or mind. They are both too shallow in their own feelings to deserve the truth of any one's affection. I to love Horace would have been as far misplaced as you, Paul "—and she laid her hand on his "to love Eva."

"I am cured now, Maud," said Paul, and he took her hand in his. A glory shone in the depths of Maud's downcast eyes. "Yet, tell me," he added, “do you think you could ever love one who had erred so far as to mistake the false for the true, and had given to mere

"And yet how sweet it is to honor and to admire physical symmetry the worship due to moral virtue? one's friend!" Can you forgive me, and do you think you could love me?"

"That may be: honor and admiration for what is true and worthy in the eye of Heaven, rather than in the code of man."

"And you, Maud ?"

"And I, my boy, am less before man than, in all humility, I would much pray to be, before Heaven. See me as I am," she added, suddenly taking a far different tone, standing and speaking with strength and decision. "What am I?—a gipsy, deformed, an outcast by race; believed to be worse than human, the dwarf-witch of the Hollow; denied the cares given to other women: denied by some that I am even a woman-for do they not call me gnome, witch, elf? And when you have fairly understood what I am, and what I seem, then call me friend if you will, and hold my hand in yours—"

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"Not love you!" she answered passionately, raising her eyes and standing up: "I loved you from the first day we talked together in the moonlight by the willow trees. I had my lap filled with herbs, and you laughed at me first, but you listened to me afterwards; and then I knew what a great gift Heaven had thrown in my way; then I acknowledged in you all my soul had ever longed for-my realization of truth and goodness; "But, Maud, you are my friend now," interrupted yet I never dreamed of your love, for I knew that you Paul.

She put up her hand. "Do not deceive yourself," she said. "Make no ideal of my swarthy face because it has bent over you lovingly in your sickness; and believe me no angel because my foot stole round your feverish bed tenderly. Do not confound gratitude with that spontaneous affection which calls out a friend from the large herd of humanity, and singles him alone of hundreds. If you do, you will but prepare your own disenchantment and discomfiture, and my unending sorrow. Come, let us go in; the dews are falling, and your cheek is pale. You look tired, and must rest."

loved Eva. Not love you! Then I do not love the very well-springs of my life!"

That night Paul closed his journal. He wrote the last words in it as the night passed into the morning hours: "To-day I have found my Egeria!"

"And now, Paul, that I know you love me for myself alone, and have cared more for my nature, the reality of my character, than for conventional appearances,. I will tell you such parts of my history as will interest you, and perhaps please you." And Maud drew her arm through her lover's, clasping her hands together.

ing myself. This pride may be foolish, but it has made
me strong-strong, Paul, in the strength of truth, and
careful for Heaven's favor rather than for man's.”
"And you wish still to preserve this secret, my
Maud ?"

"No," she said softly, and she put her arın round his neck. "I have now more than my own pride to think of, and I have no right to lay my self-made burden on another. No, Paul; you may tell to all the world-all whose social approbation is dear to you that your gipsy-wife has the royal blood of Spain in her heart : and, what will perhaps sound higher to English ears, that she possesses wealth, that could buy the old Hall, and yet not be exhausted. Maud of the Hollow -Maud the gipsy, who lived in the haunted cottage, and had dealings with Satan--Maud, who has been met on the heath bareheaded in a storm, and barefooted, too, is no dowerless vagrant married out of pity! But let all that pass," she suddenly exclaimed, interrupting herself; "let me be but the cause of your happiness, and I shall be a queen, and happier than one!"

"And you will not, my Maud, when we are married, refuse to be tamed? or shall I wake some morning to find my gipsy-wife wandered away, like the bird-maiden of the Eastern tale?"

"When I am married," she said, "I will be a good English wife, stay at home, love my lord, live in his smile, and—earn it.”

"I am a gipsy-that is too evident to be denied," she | enemies slander me at their will. I was too much at said laughing; "but I am also the daughter of a Spanish war by nature with the world to conciliate it by declarnobleman. My mother, who was wonderfully beautiful -my dear mother! how well I can remember her when I was very young, and she in all the pride of her glorious loveliness!—well, she ran away from her tribe, with a young Spaniard, wild, warm, and reckless, who married her because she had fine eyes-they were like stars-silky hair, and a clear voice. I have all the marriage-papers here," she added, showing an ivory box bound and barred with gold. "You know that the true gipsies are not allowed to marry out of their tribe, and you know that the Spanish grandee must marry also with his caste, if he wishes to keep its favor or recognition. On both sides, therefore, this marriage incurred the undying reprobation of two most different worlds; and both my father and mother had to begin new lives, strange and irksome-the restraint to her, and the simplicity to him, so unlike all they had ever been accustomed to, rendering existence almost intolerable. They came to England-my father to escape from the jealous pride of his kinsmen, my mother from the fury of her people. And here I was born, which is the reason of my Saxon name, given me out of gratitude to a young nurse, Maud, who attended my mother in her travail. But after a few years, my father died in a rapid consumption, as rapid almost as a fever. I can just remember the funeral-the hearse and the black feathers, and my mother's veil that shrouded her entirely. My mother had now no tie to civilization. Though disowned by her tribe, and certain of being murdered if she ever fell into their hands, she could not remain longer in the stillness of her hated English life. In the "We will pray together, Paul, to become worthy of Hungarian forests, among the Spanish mountains, on each other, and of the priceless gift of love graciously the wide plains of Italy, and amidst the snows of Russia | laid on the hearts of both; for to love truly, one must - often without food, oftener without shelter, my be worthy. True love never lives in a degraded heart. mother and I roamed for many, many years, although | By love the world was saved, by love the truth is she bore about with her gold and jewels-which I have now, Paul-that would have established her among the greatest of the lands where she was treated as a beggar and lived the wild career of one. She taught me all I know. Oh, she was wise, my beautiful mother! She taught me secrets of nature undreamed of in the broad beaten track of popular science; she taught me the stars, and how—Oh, my poor mother!-how they spell out our destiny; and highest of all, she taught me to read the fate stamped on each man's brow, and to spy into the heart through the book of the features; and these were secrets more valuable than cookery or embroidery although I am not without the knowledge of these either," she added, smiling. "So you see now the reason of my savageness of nature," she continued, caressingly "it is an inheritance. My poor mother showed her uncivilized blood by restlessness and ceaseless wandering; I mine, by contempt of appearances and a war with conventionalities. And it is from this feeling that I have kept my birth a secret, although it is high enough to satisfy the most exacting. It is this instinct which has made me live without pomp or parade, content to be sufficient to myself, and to let my

"Maud! Egeria! pray for me to become worthy of you; for how far below you I am!"

accepted, by love the soul is purified. Let us be worthy of our love, my Paul, and then we shall be faithful to the godlike charge we hold in the hearts of each."

Oakenden was greatly shocked at this marriage. Paul was positively cut for some weeks, and Maud's reputation as a sorceress was confirmed. Paul and Maud were not much disturbed at the small tempest they had raised. They bore it very tranquilly, and forgave all their slanderers; and by degrees and in time those even who had been most bitterly opposed to them became appeased, and the old power of virtue and kindliness was again, as ever, proved in the softening of prejudices and the opening of affection. Maud - the despised dwarf, the dreaded gipsy—the feared witch-at last won herself the esteem she deserved; for her patience. her great-heartedness, affection and knowledge, made themselves felt, as sun-rays through a cloud. And aafter her marriage, she became wise and sensible, and gave up the role of witchcraft played in her thoughtless maidenhood, the thick intellects of Oakenden were no longer obscured by shadows, and could at last afford to recognize her as she was.

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NEVER was the heaven of calmer blue, or the earth steeped in sweeter sunshine, than that which lay on the open glades and velvet pastures of Clipstone Chase on a serene Sabbath morning in the summer of 1648. The bells of the village church were ringing out over hill and valley, and, by many a winding path and woodland walk, the humble cotters and the lowly farmers wended their way towards the old grey spire, which stood pointing its silent finger to the sky.

I.

and shade, was old Sir Cuthbert Clipstone, of Clipstone Hall, attended by his beautiful daughter Bertha.

Well did Bertha deserve the name of beautiful. In the large fullness of her dark, and tenderly expressive eyes, in the sweet gentleness which lay about her lips, in the white, smooth, radiant brow, she resembled not a little the picture of the Madonna which overhung the old church altar; and as she entered her rush-strewn pew, and knelt to mutter a silent prayer, Among those who sauntered carelessly through sun the sunlight which streamed through the glass-stained

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