ripened beauties of her sex.  Behind them followed a third, a female also, whose step was less elastic but whose person continued to exhibit the evidences of a peaceful evening to the troubled day of life.  The three courteously saluted the stranger, delicately refraining from making any precipitate allusion to the motive of her visit.  Their reserve seemed necessary; for, by the agitation which shook the shattered frame of one who appeared as much sinking with grief as infirmity, it was too apparent that the unknown lady needed a little time to collect her energies and to arrange her thoughts.

She wept long and bitterly, as though alone; nor did she essay to speak until further silence would have become suspicious.  Then, drying her eyes, and with cheeks on which a bright, hectic spot was seated, her voice was heard for the first time by her wondering hosts.

“You may deem this visit an intrusion,” she said; “but one, whose will is my law, would be brought hither.”

“Wherefore?” asked the officer, with mildness, observing that her voice was already choaked.

“To die!” was the whispered, husky answer.

A common start manifested the surprise of her auditors; and then the gentleman arose, and approaching the litter, he gently drew aside a curtain, exposing its hitherto unseen tenant to the examination of all in the room.  There was understanding in the look that met his gaze, though death was but too plainly stamped on the pallid lineaments of the wounded man.  His eye alone seemed still to belong to earth; for, while all around it appeared already to be sunk into the helplessness of the last stage of human debility that was still bright, intelligent, and glowing—­might almost have been described as glaring.

“Is there aught in which we can contribute to your comfort, or to your wishes?” asked Captain de Lacey, after a long and solemn pause, during which all around the litter had mournfully contemplated the sad spectacle of sinking mortality.

The smile of the dying man was ghastly, though tenderness and sorrow were singularly and fearfully combined in its expression.  He answered not; but his eyes had wandered from face to face, until they became riveted, by a species of charm, on the countenance of the oldest of the two females.  His gaze was met by a look as settled as his own; and so evident was the powerful sympathy which existed between the two, that it could not escape the observation of the spectators.

“Mother!” said the officer, with affectionate concern; “my mother! what troubles you?”

“Henry—­Gertrude,” answered the venerable parent extending her arms to her offspring, as if she asked support; “my children, your doors have been opened to one who has a claim to enter them.  Oh! it is in these terrible moments, when passion is asleep and our weakness is most apparent, in these moments of debility and disease, that nature so strongly manifests its impression!  I see it all in that fading countenance, in those sunken features, where so little is left but the last lingering look of family and kindred!”