“Where I sincerely hope he will remain,” cried John, who since the accident of the arbor, could not tolerate the unfortunate youth.

“Amen!” said Emily, in an under tone, heard only by her brother.

“But Sir Timo—­what has become of Sir Timo—­the good, honest merchant?” asked John.

“He has dropt the title, insists on being called plain Mr. Jarvis, and lives entirely in Cornwall.  His hopeful son-in-law has gone with his regiment to Flanders; and Lady Egerton, being unable to live without her father’s assistance, is obliged to hide her consequence in the west also.”

The subject became now disagreeable to Lady Moseley, and it was changed.  Such conversations made Jane more reserved and dissatisfied than ever.  She had no one respectable excuse to offer for her partiality to her former lover, and when her conscience told her the mortifying fact, was apt to think that others remembered it too.

The letters from the continent now teemed with preparations for the approaching contest; and the apprehensions of our heroine and her friends increased, in proportion to the nearness of the struggle, on which hung not only the fates of thousands of individuals, but of adverse princes and mighty empires.  In this confusion of interests, and of jarring of passions, there were offered prayers almost hourly for the safety of Pendennyss, which were as pure and ardent as the love which prompted them.

Chapter XLVIII.

Napoleon had commenced those daring and rapid movements, which for a time threw the peace of the world into the scale of fortune, and which nothing but the interposition of a ruling Providence could avert from their threatened success.  As the the ——­th dragoons wheeled into a field already deluged with English blood, on the heights of Quatre Bras, the eye of its gallant colonel saw a friendly battalion falling beneath the sabres of the enemy’s cuirassiers.  The word was passed, the column opens, the sounds of the quivering bugle were heard for a moment above the roar of the cannon and the shouts of the combatants; the charge, sweeping like a whirlwind, fell heavily on those treacherous Frenchmen, who to-day had sworn fidelity to Louis, and to-morrow intended lifting their hands in allegiance to his rival.

“Spare my life in mercy,” cried an officer, already dreadfully wounded, who stood shrinking from the impending blow of an enraged Frenchman.  An English dragoon dashed at the cuirassier, and with one blow severed his arm from his body.

“Thank God,” sighed the wounded officer, sinking beneath the horse’s feet.

His rescuer threw himself from the saddle, and raising the fallen man inquired into his wounds.  It was Pendennyss, and it was Egerton.  The wounded man groaned aloud, as he saw the face of him who had averted the fatal blow; but it was not the hour for explanations or confessions, other than those with which the dying soldiers endeavored to make their tardy peace with their God.