how soon you will be in the presence of that Great Being in a better world, who has always been with you on earth."

"Yes, Miss Howard, death seems neither so strange nor so distant as it used to do, and oh! it will be welcome now. I am in the dark strait, when grief has struck me to the heart, and resignation has scarcely yet been granted. Age and grey-hairs, sickness and infirmity have all been gathering round me for years, and my heart was still supported and cheerful-but my child-my poor Nanny; she has destroyed herself, and how can I ever know peace again. My sorrow is the only one that religion does not cure, because the more I think, the worse it seems, that she should have died in a way which religion forbids. Every step that approaches my door this day, seems to bring me the last awful tidings, or perhaps to be the sound of those who are bearing in her lifeless body."

"We are not certain of the worst yet. She may possibly be saved. Let us cling to hope, and remember that Nanny was quite unconscious of what she did—her intellects have certainly been wandering for some time past."

"She was deeply tried, Miss Howard; she was disgraced and desperate. Oh! it comforts me to hear you still speak of hope. No one would say this morning that they had any. She flew straight to the river, which is deep and rapid. If I could but see Nanny once again —if I could but hear that she was cleared of all the evil that has been said—my eyes would close on every earthly concern in thankfulness and peace.”

“We may trust, Janet, that her former companions who raised these stories, will now be shocked at the mischief they have done, and repent sufficiently to

make them confess her innocence. Miss Fitz-Patrick was already resolved to investigate the whole affair, and though justice is sometimes reserved for a better world, still I hope that even now your daughter's character will be cleared."

"You are right, my good young lady-either now or hereafter the truth will be known, and why should I be impatient! My days on earth will be few, and they must not be wasted in vain lamentation. That dear child is taken from me, probably to make life less desirable, when its close is so near-and death less a subject of regret. I have a great work to do, for I must prepare to suffer and to die, not as those who have no hope; and though nature feels, and my heart seems broken for Nanny, yet the Christian may believe, in such an hour of extremity, that this sorrow is the last which shall come throughout an endless eternity."

Matilda thought, from Janet's altered appearance, that indeed she had not long to endure, whatever the result of her suspense might be; and having extended her visit to the utmost possible limit, she now prepared to withdraw, especially after having been relieved by the entrance of a neighbour, who had hastened back from his unsuccessful search. Before departing, however, she read the 12th chapter of Hebrews, which has been for ages the consolation of successive generations, while they have mourned and wept in this world of changes. An expression of resignation and peace gradually stole over the old woman's countenance as Matilda proceeded, far different from the ghastly and haggard look which it had worn when she entered; and, at the conclusion, Janet slowly and solemnly raised herself in the bed, and pronounced a devout blessing on her young and lovely visitor. Now," added she, "I shall endeavour patiently to await

the time, when it shall be my turn, like the grass, to be cut down; and though she, who was as the flower of the grass, is fallen before me, yet the word of the Lord endureth, and shall be my portion for ever. It comforts the heart of a poor, helpless being like me, Miss Howard, that there are rich and precious blessings which my prayers may bring down on one whom I have no other way to serve, and many and constant shall they be for you. Farewell, my kind young friend; you leave me as well as I shall be on this side of eternity; and probably our next meeting will take place where uncertainty and sorrow will be for ever at an end. and sickness are our best apprenticeship for death.

Grief

CHAPTER XIX.

I am unable, yonder beggar cries,

To stand or go. If he says true, he lies.

Donne.

A HEAVY fall of snow had come on while Matilda remained at Gowanbank, but the weather had now cleared up into the very beau idéal of a winter day-bright, cold, and clear. The air was like ice, the pure, unsullied snow lay thickly over the buried fields, and a cloudless sunshine threw the broad shadows of the overhanging branches along her path.

She looked upon the glittering landscape around, and experienced that rapturous pleasure of existence, which, independent of every other cause, often exhilarates the spirits amidst such scenes of natural beauty, and gives a sensation of happiness which can scarcely be traced to its source. Every thing seemed new and delightful. The blue etherial sky, in its matchless splendour, proclaimed the glory of Him who has stretched the heavens as a span, and the pure, untrodden snow reminded her, by its dazzling whiteness, of those garments in which glorified saints shall at length be clothed. It would be as easy for our bodies to exist without the beating pulse within, as for our minds to live in a religious state without meditation; and Matilda now reflected, in astonishment, how much her thoughts were lately occupied, and almost engrossed, with the amusements and petty

interests of the little circle in which she had recently mingled. Excepting Sir Alfred, and, she could not but add, with a smile of partial indulgence, an exception also in favour of Mr Grant, the visitors then at Barnard Castle seemed, in their conduct, to resemble a number of spoilt and not very amiable children, in their continual necessity for restless excitement, their exaggerated views of every little vexation which interrupted present gratification, their total regardlessness of each other's real feelings, and their almost undisguised desire of pre-eminence and distinction. The Miss Cliffords gloried in testifying openly an abhorrence of Captain M'Tartan and Mr Armstrong, as if they had been themselves the highest caste of Brahmins thrown into contact with a couple of Pariahs from the desert; while Colonel Pendarvis and Major Foley lived in a perpetual horror of Miss Marabout and Miss Murray, whom they pricked their ears and shyed at, as one of their own hunters would have done at a donkey on the road, and whom they classed together as a couple of undistinguishable old maids. Lord De Mainbury at the same time, looked down on the Major and the Colonel, as mere soldiers of fortune, who could scarcely keep a tolerable stud; and Lord Alderby despised Lord De Mainbury, as a man of yesterday, while he constantly whispered some old family tradition about his Lordship's grandfather having once been butler at Alderby Forest. Matilda wondered to think that all this was considered the highest refinement of good-breeding, and she could not but reflect how inferior the dancing-master and the school of fashion are to that school of the heart which taught how the feelings of the most insignificant are to be treated with respect, and how each should consider another better than himself; but reli