CHAPTER XXI.
"Gabriella, awake!" "Mother, is the day dawning ?" "My child, the sun is near his setting; you have slumbered long." I dreamed it was my mother's voice that awakened me,--then it seemed the voice of Richard Clyde, and I was lying under the great shadow of the oak, where he had found me years before half drowned in tears.
"Gabriella, my dear,--it is time to dress for the evening." This time I recognized the accents of Mrs.Linwood, and I rose at once to a sitting position, wondering if it were the rising or the declining day that shone around me.

Sleep had left its down on my harassed spirits, and its balm on my aching head.

I felt languid, but tranquil; and when Mrs.Linwood affectionately but decidedly urged upon me the necessity of rising and preparing to descend to the drawing-room, I submissively obeyed.

She must have seen that I had been in tears, but she made no allusion to them.

Her manner was unusually kind and tender; but there was an expression in her serene but commanding eye, that bade me rise superior to the weakness that had subdued me.