denied the children of the suffering Church in Scotland; but in the utmost privacy, and with every precaution against surprise, ere the body was removed from the house; and then all was over; and time rolled on, as time does ever roll. The snow melted from the hills; the streams ran clear and sparkling down the vallies; flowers came out upon the earth; the grass sprang up on that new grave in the old resting-place of the departed; for whom the long waves breaking on the rocks beneath seemed to be singing a perpetual requiem. The sky was bright and warm above it; and the lark sang merrily, high in the air, over the tombs. It was the lovely season of early summer; but the eyes of one inconsolable mourner turned wearily away from the beauty and the promise all around; and derived no pleasure from the affluence of sweetness poured out upon the earth.

Mrs. Cameron was, in fact, utterly prostrated by this last and crowning blow; the

manner of whose infliction served, if possible, to aggravate its bitterness. She could not rouse herself, could not resume her interest in life, though she mechanically fulfilled its daily round of duties. Even her little son, her last and dearest treasure, now that she was bereft of him who had so wisely and faithfully laboured to instruct the boy, became to her a source of deep and everaugmenting anxiety, too sadly inevitable in her circumstances, but which the state of her nerves and spirits rendered morbidly keen. Day by day passed on and brought her no calmness no resignation. Night after night, when all save herself had retired to rest, would she sit alone in her solitary parlour, living over again the by-gone days of happiness with her husband and her friend; thence passing on to the hours of loneliness and anxiety, broken by that brief re-union -terminated at last by that dark close of all. Then she would think of the fatherly counsel, the pity, the love, and prayers,

which had so lightened the burden of her widowhood. She would go over all, all their intercourse; recall every word, every look, every action, down to the last, that solemn blessing invoked upon her own and her boy's head ere he went away. She would dwell upon the injunction he had laid upon her, to bid him tell her next day some secret which he dreaded to let die with him. What was it? Now she would never know. It had died with him. There had been no next day—no more time for him. He had indeed come home to her, but how? And as the scene again arrayed itself before her, she would clasp her hands over her head, and fling herself forward in one of those passions of despairing tears and sobs which had become habitual with her in the hours of unrestrained indulgence of her grief, and call wildly upon her friend, her father, to return to her, to come back, were it but for one hour to comfort her in her utter desolation.

Hers was not, in short, submissive sor

It was of that species which in days when a clearer and simpler faith existed in the connexion between the seen and the unseen world,-days which modern enlight- enment brands as superstitious,-was con-sidered to render those who wilfully indulged

such a frame of mind liable to the supernatural visitations which it rashly courted. Nor do I suppose that any one to whom, though not for years after the event, Mrs. Cameron ever related what I am now about to do, would for a moment have thought of doubting its actual occurrence, or of resolving it into dreams, impressions on overexcited nerves, curious coincidences, or any of the other stock phrases by which it is now customary to characterise what it is impossible, on ordinary principles, to explain.

It was a warm and beautiful night in the month of June, and the sashed door of the parlour stood open, admitting a flood of soft moonlight into the room, and filling it

with the fragrant odours of the flowers without. The solitary occupant sat at a small table in the recess, on which stood a single candle. She was engaged in what was a greater effort to a woman in those days than it is now,-writing a letter; and the document itself was one which it had cost her not a little to begin. She had made up her mind, with what pain and reluctance it may well be imagined, that on account of her boy's education, to which there was now no one at hand to attend, it would be indispensable for her to leave Glentrochet, and remove to some where he might attend a school without quitting his mother's roof; and she was at this moment writing to an early friend in Aberdeen, which occurred to her from various causes as the most eligible place within her reach, to make enquiries respecting a residence there, with a view to reremoving to it before the ensuing winter.

VOL. II.

some town

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