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tress of knowing that her daughter might blush for her, though she herself had long conquered that unpleasant self-betrayal. Not only was she affectionately fond of Helen, but she respected her virtues, she was proud of her accomplishments; and yet she hesitated to claim her confidence, because she was conscious that her own conduct had not authorised her to give advice. She was prevented, in short, from performing her duty as a mother, because she had violated it as a wife, (an instructive moral to females!) and hence that tacit avoidance of peculiar topics of which we have made mention.

Finding therefore, after two or three remote allusions to the cause of her depressed spirits, that Helen declined entering upon the subject, Lady Trevanian affectionately kissed her daughter, recommended tranquillity and repose, and left the apartment, reflecting with a heavy heart upon those conjugal offences which had excluded her from the exercise of the maternal privileges.

Reuben remained for some time utterly overwhelmed by the total and unexpected demoli

tion of his hopes. He would have sunk into despair, but that the very links of the broken chain were precious in his eyes-that he found it a consolation to recall every look, word, and action of Helen; to dwell upon her beauties, her talents, her virtues, and indulge in fond speculations as to the possibility of overcoming her objections; and of being ultimately blessed with her hand. Upon these reveries, this diet of hope, thin and unsubstantial as it was, his love not only contrived to exist, but to maintain its full force. However futile might be the expectations with which he fed his heart, he found every day an increased delight in wandering about the plantations, and beleaguering the house in which his Helen resided. Every spot which they had trodden together became sanctified, every tree of the garden and window of the house was hallowed by some delicious association; and when the shades of evening

enveloped the mansion, or its unconscious in-
mates were wrapped in sleep, he would watch
about the building with as much anxious solici

tude as a mother bending over the cradle in which reposes her only infant.

In one of these romantic wanderings he had entered the little arbour which we have already noticed as the scene of Adeline's adventure with the fish-poacher, and as he reposed upon the seat within, and called from the treasury of his recollection every word uttered by Helen when they had last stood gazing upon the water, he wrote with a pencil the following lines which he left upon the bench :

"As the fond bird, through night and morn,
Still flutters round her rifled nest,

And loves the scene, though now forlorn,
Where once her brooding heart was bless'd;

So do I love to hover here,

Where dreams of bliss I once enjoy'd,
And haunt the spot, though fate severe
Has all
my brood of hope destroy'd."

Adeline's amazement at the non-appearance of her lover had been not less vehement than her grief, and Helen thought it better to leave her in doubt, and to the possibility of a change

in Reuben's affections, than to afford her a solution which would be infinitely more painful than her present state of suspense. It was altogether a mystery to Adeline, which she could not unriddle; en attendant she felt it highly expedient to assume all the airs of a forlorn and deserted damsel. Although her grief, like every thing else she did, was overacted, her pride was really piqued at this sudden and unaccountable desertion, and she was mortified beyond measure, that with all her inquiries she could not discover any plausible pretext for so strange a mutability of purpose.

It was in one of these disappointed moods that she entered the little arbour on the morning after it had been visited by Reuben, and perused the scrap of poetry he had left upon the bench. Nothing could exceed her transport at this fortunate discovery; she kissed the paper the proper number of times, and with the due quantum of ecstasy prescribed in all such cases by the most approved romance-writers, and was ready to cry when she had done, at finding she had

rubbed out two whole words and a bit of a third with her mouth. Fortunately she was enabled to restore them from the context; and that so precious a memorial might not be exposed to similar accidents, or its characters be entrusted to so delible a material as black lead, she sat down instantly and learnt the whole by heart, resolving to preserve the original with the most pious care as a sacred and invaluable relic. As to any doubt of the verses being intended for herself, such an idea never entered into her contemplations; and her passion, which was rapidly beginning to cool, in spite of all her artificial stimulants and affected despair, and which without some prompt refreshment would probably have soon died of inanition, received an impulse from this poetic cordial, which instantly restored it to its pristine animation and vigour. It was now obvious that he was not a voluntary exile from the house; what could have destroyed the hopes of his heartwhat was the severe fate to which he alluded, but the tyranny of her mother, who had mani

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