subdued by this event. Nothing increases the intensity of feeling more than when our present sorrow is deeply contrasted with our expected joys; and even the most callous at Roe Park, felt their tears flow, when they saw the bride and the bridegroom clothed in deep weeds instead of nuptial array, and all the company assembled in the chamber of death, hearing Dr Pelham perform the last obsequies over the dead body of the Marchioness, instead of joining the hands of Lady Amelia Truefeel, and Sir Ferdinand Moreland.

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But all emotions of natural grief are generally of a transient nature; and the funeral was scarcely over, when the usual answer to inquiring friends was, with truth, and in proper form, changed from," as well as can be expected," into pretty well," and from thence into "quite well." The poor Marquis felt, as a sad bore, the continual call upon him to renew his sorrows by the letters of condolence; some of them extolling the Marchioness as a departed saint-all holding her up as a paragon of a wife and mother, and exhorting him, by every argument of philosophy and religion, to calm, and subdue, and bear manfully, sorrows which already were completely under control. He began to fear, that after having lost such a treasure, he would be looked upon as having no feeling if he was able to be cheerful, in

less than a year. But to put his feeling and affection past a doubt, he ordered a magnificent tomb-stone, on which all the Marchioness's virtues, supposed and real, were inscribed, supported by two weeping cherubs; and it was intimated to Dr Webster, that he was expected to preach a funeral sermon, setting forth the said virtues and perfections of this best of mothers, best of wives, paragon of friends, and honour to her sex. But Webster did not at all satisfy the expectations of the Vainall family upon this occasion. He preached indeed a beautiful and pathetic discourse from "Man groweth up like a flower; in the morning he groweth up and flourisheth, and in the evening he is cut down and withereth;" and merely alluded to the Marchioness's death, as a recent melancholy event which had occurred in the parish, and ought to be a warning to high and low, young and old, to prepare to meet their God.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Hope and Fortune, farewell! I've escaped from your sea; Henceforward cheat others; ye once cheated me."

THE time which fashion prescribes for the first mourning for persons of distinction, was now completed for the Marchioness of Vainall; and even the Marquis was allowed to doff some of his weeds of woe. He had displayed no affectation ; he never even alluded to the dusky cloak which he wore, and all the other signs of woe, as indications of aught but conformity to custom. He never said, "Seems, madam, nay it is; I know not seems"—" I have that within which passeth show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe." The Marchioness, it is true, if she was not a great loss, was, at all events, a great blank; for she was not like a noiseless dream, a vision-like person, who floated on the viewless air.

But Lady Amelia now felt it both her duty and inclination so wholly to devote herself to her father, that, notwithstanding the blank, he felt that

he had gained something which was more than a compensation—yet how part with her, the staff of his old age, his comfort, his consolation! He felt that his married daughters were not like her; they were good kind creatures; but she was his friend; and he felt something of the feelings of King Lear towards Cordelia, and a dislike to Moreland, as the disturber of his peace, by wishing to make her a married daughter also. Old people are averse to changes, and the Marquis was now old ; yet a change seemed inevitable. Lady Amelia was engaged to, and must be the wife of, Sir Ferdinand Moreland.

"I wonder how people can ever think of marrying," said the Marquis. "I am sure the single state is the happier state. Cannot Moreland im

prove the country without troubling himself with a wife? More Muir is not a place for women; there is no accommodation but for ploughmen, and shepherds, and cattle-feeders."

But Sir Ferdinand Moreland, notwithstanding all these objections, claimed the promised hand of Lady Amelia Truefeel; and Lady Amelia appeared willing to fulfil her engagement; and the marriage was inevitable. But the old man's heart seemed ready to break at parting with his beloved daughter; and the difficulties and delays he proposed were so numerous and so frequently repeat

ed, that, at last, it was settled that the marriage should forthwith take place, but that they should live at Roe Park during the Marquis's life. Moreland felt this a sacrifice; but his newly-acquired estate lay so near, that his usefulness in that quarter he felt would not be hindered; and such had been the consistent upright character he had uniformly maintained, during his acquaintance with the Vainall family, that though they hated his religious fanaticism, as they called it, yet still they felt no jealousy of the consequent influence he might obtain over the Marquis, by his residence at Roe Park, but secure that their interests were as safe in his keeping as in their own. Such is the homage that vice is sometimes found to pay to virtue. From the recent death of the Marchioness, the marriage was celebrated in as quiet a manner as possible, by Dr Pelham, who had, ever since the fatal event, continued at Roe Park, to console the Marquis. He was now also far declined in the vale of years; and much of his acrimony was subdued either by the kindness of the Morelands, or by a better spirit which had begun to work within him.

The Morelands, as is the custom for new married pairs, set off on a fortnight's excursion to one of Moreland's English estates. "Let us be helps to one another," said he, "in our journey to Zion,