intention of the clubmen to surprise the house of Ralph Milbourne, and carry off his daughter. He had therefore ambushed himself and his brave followers in a copse on the confines of the park, and Helen’s agonising cry for help was his signal for attacking the ruffians.

The night was profoundly dark; but the red blaze from the New Hall, which the lawless miscreants, after plundering it, had fired, was sufficient to enable the cavaliers to discharge their petronels with deadly effect among the foremost of the clubmen, who were greatly superior in numbers to themselves; then rushing from their concealment with drawn swords, they assailed them so fiercely that the rabble-rout were panic-stricken, and after a disorderly attempt at maintaining their ground, fled precipitately in all directions.

Helen, on whose startled ear the discharge of firearms, the clash of swords, and the mingled yells of rage and vengeance had fallen in dread confusion, added a faint cry of female terror to the tumultuous din around her, and sank back in a state of utter insensibility. How long her swoon continued Helen knew not; but her first sensation of consciousness was a feeling that her peril was over, for she was supported in the arms and on the bosom of some person whose form was indistinct in the surrounding darkness, but whose voice of deep and tender melody, as he gently soothed her with assurances that she was safe, and all danger past, though it had never before met her ear, went to her heart like the remembered tones of some dear familiar friend.

“And where am I?” she asked.

“With friends, madam,” was the reply of her unknown protector.

“What friends?” she eagerly demanded, as a sudden volume of flame from the burning mansion threw a fitful radiance over the waving plumes and lovelocks of the cavaliers.

“With Colonel Dagworth and a part of his regiment,” replied he on whose bosom she had hitherto so confidingly leaned.

“Colonel Dagworth!” she exclaimed. “Edward Dagworth, the son of Sir Reginald Dagworth, my father’s enemy,” continued she, gently struggling to disengage herself from his supporting arms; “is it indeed, to your generous valour that I am indebted for deliverance from a fate too terrible to think upon?”

She shuddered, and gave way to a convulsive burst of hysterical weeping; then raising her streaming eyes to his face, she murmured, “How shall we ever repay you?”

“I am repaid,” he soothingly replied; “richly, nobly repaid, by the happiness I feel in having had it in my power to perform a service for Mistress Helen Milbourne.”

What sweet words were these from the lips of the hero of her mental romance! Insensibly her eyes closed once more; and she was again supported on the manly bosom of her brave deliverer.

Meantime, Ingworth New Hall was blazing bright and far; a brisk wind was abroad, and, truth to tell, no efforts had been made for its preservation from the devouring element; so that, before Helen was sufficiently composed to give directions whither she should be removed, Colonel Dagworth had taken the resolution of conveying her to his own home, and placing her under his mother’s protection.

Lady Alice received her fair charge with evident reluctance, but with all the outward courtesy and attention to her comforts that the circumstances of the case and the obligatory duties of hospitality required; but there was a haughtiness in her condescension that sufficiently indicated how much it cost her to exercise it towards the individual thus thrown upon her charity. Colonel Dagworth saw and felt it all more deeply than even the apprehensive and sensitive Helen; and being well aware, from his knowledge of his mother’s peculiar disposition, that remonstrances from him would be perfectly useless, he endeavoured to compensate to Helen, whom he regarded as his own guest, by every graceful and delicate attention, for the coldness