THE good old couple, awakened from their refreshing slumber, had already sent a servant in search of their missing niece, wondering a little what could keep her out so late upon this last night at Glan Pennant, after a day of such fatigue, and the eve of her long journey.

But Mary told them that she had been detained talking to Mr. Temple, whom she had met upon the hill, and they were glad that she had seen him, little devising all that parting interview had comprised, or they might not have been quite so well satisfied with the part their niece had taken therein. For it being their chief anxiety to see this last remaining niece well settled in life, now that the critical and uncertain circumstances of the family affairs rendered some secure provision so desirable, and their matter of fact perceptions leading them to regard Mr. Temple in the light of a very exemplary clergyman, of comfortable means—and, judging from his gentlemanly carriage and superior conversation, more than from his own profession, or other guarantee of good family and birth; they had often thought, and even ventured to express in words to each other, what a good husband he would make for their quiet Mary, whose tastes and qualities-judging from the same simple. minded rule of observation, which never saw aught beyond the

surface of appearance or boundary of circumstances the good old couple interpreted, were exactly those befitting her for the vocation to be thereby entailed upon her, namely, that of clergyman's wife, an inference which we have seen from our heroine's own confessions that evening, to have been by no means correctly drawn.

Mary Seaham's four sisters had been severally disposed of in marriage, since by the death of their father, the charge of the orphan daughters had devolved upon them. The eldest in every way as the eldest daughter of a family is often seen to do—most to the entire approval and satisfaction of her friends.

The superior advantages of a girl's introduction into the world, under the care and superintendence of sensible and estimable parents, had distinguished her opening career above those of her other sisters, and she had been engaged before her father's death to Lord Everingham-whom she subsequently married—a nobleman of high worth and distinction, at this time holding a considerable post in India.

Alice, the second daughter, a few years after, became the wife of Mr. Gillespie, a Scotch lawyer, with whom she had become acquainted whilst visiting some friends in Scotland, and he being a widower, with children already provided for her care, to whose number she had duly added, her's had proved no sinecure undertaking. But laudably had she fulfilled the destiny appointed her, devoting herself in her still youthful years without a murmur or backward look of regret to the life of comparative drudgery which this choice of a husband had entailed upon her -a course of life to which sneerers may be ready to apply the slighting axiom of Iago,

"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer;"

but which, nevertheless, when thus accomplished, may be accounted one of the most honourable a woman can fulfil; the one, perhaps, best meriting that commendation which the faithful workers in this world's vineyard shall receive at the last day, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant," &c.; and though some might have fancied, at the time, that Alice Seabam, with her refined tastes, and somewhat superior qualifications, was entering on a vocation she was ill fitted to sustain, either with pleasure or profit to herself or others, it surprised them to find how little these characteristics stood in the way of her usefulness, capability, or perfect contentment in the part she

was called upon to act on this life's theatre-that part which devolves on the wife of a professional man, with an increasing family, and limited income. How far more usefully and happily employed, for herself and others, were those refined tastes, and those superior qualifications, though thus adapted, like the beautiful plants and products of the foreign climes, to the common uses and necessities of mankind, than if suffered to expand and expend themselves upon the leafless desert, in selfish, listless, idle inefficiency, often preying morbidly on their own resources for lack of legitimate exercise or healthful outletthose very tastes and qualifications proving oftener a curse and a reproach, than a blessing and an ornament to their possessor. For woman's strength and honour lie in her heart, in her affections, in the duties which from them devolve; if she lean upon her own understanding, trusts to the resources of her mind or intellect, she leans on a broken reed, she makes for herself broken cisterns which can hold no water.

Selina Seaham, the third daughter, and the beauty of the family, only one year before the marriage celebrated on the day in question, consulted the inclinations of her own heart, rather than the prudent wishes of her friends, and gave her hand to an officer, who had immediately after left England to join his regiment in India with his bride; and then the two younger sisters had remained together at Glan Pennant, without any seeming prospect of such speedy disseverment as had since occurred, till, some months after, Sir Hugh Morgan, the great man of those parts, to the astonishment of all, proposed to the youngest Miss Seaham, and was accepted; he being her senior by some five-and-twenty years. And, though he had ever been on very intimate and friendly terms with the family, had not shown any tendency that way since the time when, on the Seahams first coming to settle in the neighbourhood, after their father's death-Mr. Seaham having absented himself from Glan Pennant for some years, for the education of his daughters -Sir Hugh Morgan made an offer of his hand to the eldest daughter, and finding himself at fault, she being engaged at the very time to Lord Everingham, oddly overlooked the precedence of the genius and the beauty amongst the sisters, and transferred his offer of a place in his hard-named pedigree to the startled Mary, then a girl of scarcely seventeen. But though a man of much honest worth, not to speak of the worldly recommendations of the match, the proposal produced

the mind of the unambitious maiden but surprise

no effect upon and repugnance.

"And she refused him, though her aunt did say,
'Twas an advantage she had thrown away.
(He an advantage!) That she'd live to rue it."

Whether or not she had reason for repentance on this score, may cause, amongst those who follow her history, a difference of opinion. But certain it is, that with not a pang of envious regret on her own account, had she seen her young and blooming sister Agnes, give her hand that morning, five years after the event of her refusal to the same excellent man, the only disagreeable feeling the occasion excited in her mind being the difficulty of reconciling herself to the idea that her dear, pretty, young sister Aggy should so cheerfully acquiesce in a fate which had once raised in her own mind such unqualified disinclination.

But then she was the only individual in the world who did not think the fair bride the luckiest creature in the world, and the wisest.

"Who but a fool like me, they think, no doubt," mused Mary Seaham, with a humble sigh, "would have rejected such an advantage as they seem to consider it. True, I was only seventeen at the time, but am I wiser at twenty-one? Tonight's experience has well shown forth." And she remembered a certain fable which had composed a portion of her childhood's lessons, "The dog and the shadow," and smiled in very scorn and derision at her own puerility.

But, alas! there are shadows which our wild and wilful imaginations have conjured up, which, scorn and deride them as we may, are destined to cast a darkening influence on our future destinies.

"Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;"

to become, in fact, a substance-a reality-from which we would often fain be able to awake and say it was a dream.

"Grant us not the ill we ask-in very love refuse

That which we know our weakness would abuse."

But it is as well, perhaps, to retrograde, in order to relate the incident which some years ago had cast its beguiling shadows upon the pure stream of our heroine's young existShe was scarcely sixteen, when, under the chaperonage of her sister, Lady Everingham, then a bride, she had found her

ence.

self at the summer fête, given by the father of her cousin, Mr. de Burgh's beautiful betrothed. Lady Everingham was taken ill soon after her arrival, and returned home with her husband, leaving her young sister under the nominal care of her cousin, Louis de Burgh, and his fiancée (the queen of that day's revels), who had, with the most eager kindness, taken upon themselves the charge, but, as may be naturally supposed, were but far too much better employed to carry out their good intentions, so that Mary, having for some little time kept near them, feeling very greatly de trop, being at length divided for an instant from their side, saw the lovers, when next in view, disappear together within the shade of a bosquet, and she left alone amidst these few strangers, and indifferent friends, who happened to be near the spot.

Her youth and timidity made this situation of itself one of sufficient embarassment to her feelings, there being none with whom she felt such a degree of intimacy or acquaintance as gave her courage to claim their protection or companionship, but when these even began to drop off by degrees from the parterre, wherein a portion of the company had assembled, and the last lady had eventually departed without her having the courage to follow in her train, poor Mary's distress was at its climax. Only a group, composed of several gentlemen, with not one of whom she was in any way acquainted, remained behind.

The solitary position in which she found herself, causing her to become a conspicuous object, the timid, though not awkward embarrassment of the young girl as she stood irresolute whether to remain or to retire, attracted the attention of the party. They all looked at her, one or two exchanged smiles, which poor Mary was very quick to interpret into those of amusement and derision; and, crimsoning to the temples, she was preparing to glide away in desperate search of her cousin, when, out of that very group from whose fancied satire she was so anxious to escape, a gentleman stepped forward and politely addressed her.

He was afraid that she had lost her friends; could he in any way assist her? She thanked him, and hesitatingly murmured the names of her cousin and his bride-elect. But this seemed sufficient explanation to the gentleman, with regard to the situation to which he found the young lady exposed. He smiled good-naturedly, feared she must not find fault with any deficiency in their chaperonage just now; and begged her to accept