mind.  She had been stunned by an unexpected blow; yet life, however
joyless, was not to be indolently resigned, or misery endured
without exertion, and proudly termed patience.  She had hitherto
meditated only to point the dart of anguish, and suppressed the
heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt.
Now she endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude, and to ask
herself what was to be her employment in her dreary cell?  Was it
not to effect her escape, to fly to the succour of her child,
and to baffle the selfish schemes of her tyrant--her husband?

     These thoughts roused her sleeping spirit, and the
self-possession returned, that seemed to have abandoned her in the
infernal solitude into which she had been precipitated. The first
emotions of overwhelming impatience began to subside, and resentment
gave place to tenderness, and more tranquil meditation; though
anger once more stopt the calm current of reflection when she
attempted to move her manacled arms.  But this was an outrage that
could only excite momentary feelings of scorn, which evaporated in
a faint smile; for Maria was far from thinking a personal insult
the most difficult to endure with magnanimous indifference.

     She approached the small grated window of her chamber, and
for a considerable time only regarded the blue expanse; though it
commanded a view of a desolate garden, and of part of a huge pile
of buildings, that, after having been suffered, for half a century,
to fall to decay, had undergone some clumsy repairs, merely to
render it habitable.  The ivy had been torn off the turrets, and
the stones not wanted to patch up the breaches of time, and exclude
the warring elements, left in heaps in the disordered court.  Maria
contemplated this scene she knew not how long; or rather gazed on
the walls, and pondered on her situation.  To the master of this
most horrid of prisons, she had, soon after her entrance, raved of
injustice, in accents that would have justified his treatment, had
not a malignant smile, when she appealed to his judgment, with a
dreadful conviction stifled her remonstrating complaints.  By force,
or openly, what could be done?  But surely some expedient might
occur to an active mind, without any other employment, and possessed
of sufficient resolution to put the risk of life into the balance
with the chance of freedom.

     A woman entered in the midst of these reflections, with a
firm, deliberate step, strongly marked features, and large black
eyes, which she fixed steadily on Maria's, as if she designed to
intimidate her, saying at the same time "You had better sit down
and eat your dinner, than look at the clouds."

     "I have no appetite," replied Maria, who had previously
determined to speak mildly; "why then should I eat?"

     "But, in spite of that, you must and shall eat something.  
I have had many ladies under my care, who have resolved to starve
themselves; but, soon or late, they gave up their intent, as they
recovered their senses."

     "Do you really think me mad?" asked Maria, meeting the
searching glance of her eye.

     "Not just now.  But what does that prove?--Only that you must
be the more carefully watched, for appearing at times so reasonable.
You have not touched a morsel since you entered the house."--Maria
sighed intelligibly.--"Could any thing but madness produce such a
disgust for food?"

     "Yes, grief; you would not ask the question if you knew what
it was." The attendant shook her head; and a ghastly smile of
desperate fortitude served as a forcible reply, and made Maria
pause, before she added--"Yet I will take some refreshment: I mean
not to die.--No; I will preserve my senses; and convince even you,
sooner than you are aware of, that my intellects have never been
disturbed, though the exertion of them may have been suspended by
some infernal drug."

     Doubt gathered still thicker on the brow of her guard, as she
attempted to convict her of mistake.

     "Have patience!" exclaimed Maria, with a solemnity that inspired
awe.  "My God! how have I been schooled into the practice!"
A suffocation of voice betrayed the agonizing emotions she was
labouring to keep down; and conquering a qualm of disgust, she
calmly endeavoured to eat enough to prove her docility, perpetually
turning to the suspicious female, whose observation she courted,
while she was making the bed and adjusting the room.

     "Come to me often," said Maria, with a tone of persuasion,
in consequence of a vague plan that she had hastily adopted, when,
after surveying this woman's form and features, she felt convinced
that she had an understanding above the common standard, "and
believe me mad, till you are obliged to acknowledge the contrary."
The woman was no fool, that is, she was superior to her class; nor
had misery quite petrified the life's-blood of humanity, to which
reflections on our own misfortunes only give a more orderly course.
The manner, rather than the expostulations, of Maria made a slight
suspicion dart into her mind with corresponding sympathy, which
various other avocations, and the habit of banishing compunction,
prevented her, for the present, from examining more minutely.

     But when she was told that no person, excepting the physician
appointed by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at
the end of the gallery, she opened her keen eyes still wider, and
uttered a--"hem!" before she enquired--"Why?" She was briefly told,