But, alas! the insecurity of even the best-laid schemes of human foresight! Lady Juliana was in the midst of arrangements for endless pleasures, when she received accounts of the death of her now almost forgotten husband. He had died from the gradual effects of the climate, and that was all that remained to be told of the unfortunate Henry Douglas. If his heartless wife shed some natural tears, she wiped them soon; but the wounds of disappointment and vanity were not so speedily effaced, as she contrasted the brilliant court-dress with the unbecoming widow's cap. Oh, she so

detested black things-it was so hateful to wear mourning-she never could feel happy or comfortable in black, and, at such a time, how particularly unfortunate! Poor Douglas! she was very sorry. And so ended the holiest and most indissoluble of human ties.

The Duchess did not think it incumbent upon her to be affected by the death of a person she had never seen; but she put on mourning; put off her presentation at Court for a week, and stayed away one night from the opera.

On Mary's warm and unpolluted heart, the tidings of her father's death produced a very different effect. Though she had never known, in their fullest extent, those feelings of filial affection, whose source begins with our being, and over which memory loves to linger, as at the hallowed fount of the purest of earthly joys, she had yet been taught to cherish a fond remembrance of him to whom she owed her being. She had been brought up in the land of his birth-his image was associated in her mind, with many of the scenes most dear to herhis name and his memory were familiar to those

amongst whom she dwelt, and thus her feelings of natural affection had been preserved in all their genuine warmth and tenderness. Many a letter, and many a little token of her love, she had, from her earliest years, been accustomed to send him; and she had ever fondly cherished the hope of her father's return, and that she would yet know the happiness of being blest in a parent's love. But now all these hopes were extinguished; and, while she wept over them in bitterness of heart, she yet bowed with pious resignation to the decree of heaven.

CHAPTER LXI

"Shall we grieve their hovering shades, Which wait the revolution in our hearts? Shall we disdain their silent, soft address; Their posthumous advice and pious prayer?"

YOUNG.

FOR some months all was peaceful seclusion in

Mary's life, and the only varieties she knew were occasional visits to aunt Grizzy's and now and then spending some days with Mrs. Lennox. She saw, with sorrow, the declining health of her venerable friend, whose wasted form and delicate features had now assumed an almost ethereal aspect. Yet she never complained, and it was only from her languor and weakness that Mary guessed she suffered. When urged to have recourse to medical advice, she only smiled and shook her head; yet, ever gentle and complying to the wishes of others, she was at length prevailed upon to receive the visits of a medical attendant, and her own feelings were but too faithfully confirmed by his opinion. Being an old friend of the family, he took upon himself to communicate the intelligence to her son, then abroad with his regiment; and in the meantime Mary took up her residence at Rose Hall, and devoted herself unceasingly to the beloved friend she felt she was so soon to lose.

"Ah! Mary," she would sometimes say, "God forgive me! but my heart is not yet weaned from

worldly wishes. Even now, when I feel all the vanity of human happiness, I think how it would have soothed my last moments could I have but seen you my son's before I left the world! Yet, alas! our time here is so short, that it matters little whether it be spent in joy or grief, provided it be spent in innocence and virtue. Mine has been a long life compared to many; but when I look back upon it, what a span it seems! And it is not the remembrance of its brightest days that are now a solace to my heart. Dearest Mary, if live long, you will live to think of the sad hours you have given me, as the fairest perhaps, of many a happy day that, I trust, heaven has yet in store for you. Yes! God has made some whose powers are chiefly ordained to comfort the afflicted, and in fulfilling His will you must surely be blest."

you

Mary listened to the half-breathed wishes of her dear old friend with painful feelings of regret and self-reproach.

"Charles Lennox loved me," thought she, "truly, tenderly loved me and had I but repaid his noble frankness-had I suffered him to read my heart when he laid his open before me, I might now have gladdened the last days of the mother he adores. I might have proudly avowed that affection I must now for hide."

ever

But, at the end of some weeks, Mrs. Lennox was no longer susceptible of emotions, either of joy or sorrow. She gradually sunk into a state of almost total insensibility, from which not even the arrival of her son had power to rouse her. His anguish was extreme at finding his mother in a

condition so perfectly hopeless; and every other idea seemed, for the present, absorbed in his anxiety for her. As Mary witnessed his watchful cares, and tender solicitude, she could almost have envied the unconscious object of such devoted attachment.

A few days after his arrival, his leave of absence was abruptly recalled, and he was summoned to repair to headquarters with all possible expedition. The army was on the move, and a battle was expected to be fought. At such a time, hesitation or delay, under any circumstances, would have been inevitable disgrace; and, dreadful as was the alternative, Colonel Lennox wavered not an instant in his resolution. With a look of fixed agony, but without uttering a syllable, he put the letter into Mary's hand as she sat by his mother's bedside, and then left the room to order preparations to be made for his instant departure. On his return, Mary witnessed the painful conflict of his feelings in his extreme agitation, as he approached his mother, to look, for the last time, on those features, already moulded into more than mortal beauty. A bright ray of the setting sun streamed full upon that face, now reposing in the awful but hallowed calm which is sometimes diffused around the bed of death. The sacred stillness was only broken by the evening song of the blackbird, and the distant lowing of the cattle-sounds which had often brought pleasure to that heart, now insensible to all human emotion. All nature shone forth in gaiety and splendour, but the eye and the ear were alike closed against all earthly objects. Yet who can tell the brightness of those visions with which the parting soul may be visited? Sounds and sights, alike unheard, un