The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

168 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" IIe had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater
violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further expostulation
impossible, lifted his fihger at Macraw, with a menacing attitude, as he left
the apartment.
" I tell'd ye sae," said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then
proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain
stationed.
This ring,This little ring, with necromantic force,
Has raised the ghost of Pleasure to my fears,
Conjured the sense of honour and of love
Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.
TuE FATAL MARRIAGE.
THE ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan-House, notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were
popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation.
It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter announcing the
death or her second, and, as was once believed, her favourite son, the hand
of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid twinkle, any more than upon
perusal of a letter of ordinary business. Heaven only knows whether the
suppression of maternal sorrow, which her pride commanded, might not
have some effect in hastening her own death. It was at least generally
supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so soon afterwards terminated
her existenc'e, was, as it were, the vengeance of outraged Nature for the
restraint to which her feelings had been subjected. But although Lady
Glenallan forbore the usual external signs of grief, she had caused many
of the apartments, amongst others her own and that of the Earl, to be hung
with the exterior trappings of woe.
The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with
black cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen,
also covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window,
intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the
stained glass, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth century
possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The table at
which the Earl was seated wias lighted with two lamps wrought in silver,
shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the mingling
of artificial lustre with that of general daylight. The same table displayed
a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment books. A large picture,
exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.
The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past
the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so
gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when
he hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed
almost to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the
apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek,
firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old
mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in
the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye,