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Doctor Danton stood this wild and wintry February morning at his chamber window, looking out absently at the slanting sleet, not thinking of it not thinking of the pale blank of wet mist shrouding the distant fields and marshes, and village and river, but of something that made him knit his brows in perplexed, reflection. "What was it she saw last, night?" he mused.

In the one case, it is a punishment of the most terrific kind and nothing can equal that awful lethargy of the soul, that wraps a man as in a garment, shrouding him from the bright world without, and leaving him nought save the darkness of his gloomy nature to brood over.

"Since then, many months have elapsed; alone and mournfully I live, like a hermit, in these walls, abhorred by the world, an abomination even to brutes. Beautiful nature is shut out from me; for I am blind by day, and only when the moon sheds her wan light upon this ruin, falls the shrouding veil from mine eye."

In the winter and early spring of 1587, the Devonshire skipper had organized that expedition which he had come to the Netherlands, the preceding autumn, to discuss. He meant to aim a blow at the very heart of that project which Philip was shrouding with so much mystery, and which Elizabeth was attempting to counteract by so much diplomacy.

That night the moon was clouded until late but broke through its shrouding before Dorothy went to bed, and she slipped out to look at the young shoot and perhaps to think of the man who had taken her in his arms there. But as she approached she saw no standing shape and when she reached the spot she found that the freshly placed earth had been dug up.

Wrapped so closely in his dark, shrouding mantle that naught but the drooping feather of his cap could be distinguished, the Earl of Gloucester drew near the prisoner, and as he paused, ere the gates and bars of the prison entrance could be drawn back, whispered hurriedly yet emphatically "A loved one is safe and shall be so. Would to God I could do more!"

"Because," said the old man, drawing himself up, and speaking with a hoarse effort; "because, God forgive me, you are my own daughter!" She was looking in his face. A sob broke upon her pale lips the strength left her limbs and she fell down before him, shrouding her agony with both hands. General Harrington had no power to comfort the poor creature at his feet.

With spear high poised, and steady hand, The centre of that fiery ray, Behold the Indian fisher stand Prepared to strike the finny prey; Hurrah! the shaft has sped below Transfix'd the shining prize I see; On swiftly darts the birch canoe; Yon black rock shrouding from my view Its red light gleaming cheerily!

Garbed from head to foot in the deep, violet-coloured stuff which is the mourning of Turkish women, her little pointed slippers showing beneath the hem of her frock, and only her dark, mournful eyes visible between the top of the shrouding yashmak and the edge of her sequined snood, she made a pathetic picture as she stood there waiting to greet the unknown visitor.

"I would pray for an honest heart wherewith to give honest thanks," said Clementina, in a low voice; and she added hastily, "There is a life of ceremonies, there is a life of cities before me. I have lived under the skies these last two days." She went into the church, shrouding her face in her hood, and kneeled down before a rush chair close to the door.