It was lined with azure velvet, wrought with silver thread, in dainty wreathe of water lilies; and in the bottom, neatly folded, lay a sheet of foolscap.

She opened it with nervous haste; it was a common sheet enough, stamped with fool's cap and bells, that showed it belonged to Cromwell's time.

It was closely written, in a light, fair hand, and bore the title "Leoline's History." Leoline's hand trembled so with eagerness, she could scarcely hold the paper; but her eye rapidly ran from line to line, and she stopped not till she reached the end.

While she read, her face alternately flushed and paled, her eyes dilated, her lips parted; and before she finished it, there came over all a look of the most unutterable horror.

It dropped from her powerless fingers as she finished; and she sank back in her chair with such a ghastly paleness, that it seemed absolutely like the lividness of death.
A sudden and startling noise awoke her from her trance of horror--some one trying to get in at the window! The chill of terror it sent through every vein acted as a sort of counter-irritant to the other feeling, and she sprang from her chair and turned her face fearfully toward the sounds.