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a thousand brilliant fragments, and was seen no more. How like, you said, to many a mortal destiny, bright, glowing, rushing onward, till the very impetus of its progress has proved the source of its premature dissolution and decay. Sometimes, my Charles, the excess of happiness makes me dread a wayward close. Ah, bear with me, loved one, and believe that I have no misgivings of the future as regards myself; all my disquietude is for you alone.

X.

"So, poor Emily is married and off. How strange; Emily Jones no more, but now and for ever she wears the name of Wriothesley-Emily Wriothesley! I dare say, too, she thinks it prettier than her own name, that by which she was known from infancy. How odd she will find the signature. Your dear friend Emily Wriothesley.' I have already received a note thus attested; the Emily is well enough, but the Wriothesley seems awkward, tremulous;

VOI. III.

D

perhaps it is only fancy. Young girls I dare say, sometimes try how an alteration would look, thus Julia-ah, truant, but I won't do it, though I might think one other name just as good as Hastings. Well, it is very odd too, parting with a name-your poor name that, in good repute and ill, has served you so long— that has borne you into many a scrape and out of it again, and that you are to wear never more till death. Yet, women change their names, and change them again; perhaps it is right: but if ever I come to wear the dear name of Thornley-were I, oh God, to lose thee, all the powers of earth should never induce me to forswear it.

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"And so you came and were groomsman to that happy youth. And how gay he looked with his sunny face, and his fair young bride! I felt agitated for a time, but your dear smile reassured me; and I experienced a strange

choking sensation when, the ceremony being concluded, the officiating clergyman, whether in jest or earnest, affected to think we were to come next, and would, I believe, have gone on with the customary forms. And that wicked girl-how could she actually laughed at my embarrassment; and then, you drew my arm in yours, and comforted me; and said things which made me blush to hear, and which would make my cheeks tingle were I to repeat them. Then-ah, sadness, you went away, and I saw you no more!

"I am now with my dear mother, and the contrast of my present quiet abode with the bustle and the splendour that I have so lately been a participator in, is very strange. Poor mamma was so solitary; indeed, I was averse to leave her; and, could I have anticipated so long an absence, would never have ventured on it. Here everything reminds me of you; the chair in which you sat-the table at which you wrote or read, and where I have so often given

you a little surprise. I have this moment before me several bouquets of faded yet not perfumeless flowers-flowers which, at different times, you collected for me, and with which, I could never bear to part. Promise me you won't laugh, and I shall tell you something; That coronal which you once placed on my head, and which I never shewed you, is stored with the rest. The airs and songs too, which you loved to hear, I still sometimes rehearse on my guitar: if I knew any others, I have forgotten them. The landscapes which you praised, I endeavour to amend; with the authors of which you approved, I have become still more familiar. What, my Charles, would I not do for you-what, that would serve to justify the preference which you feel, and have often so tenderly expressed?

"A secret disquietude haunts me; my Charles will allow me to reveal it to him. Sometimes my mother's former restlessness assails her anew; and this, combined with her

impaired health, makes me very unhappy. You know, Charles, I could not leave her even to go to you. A thousand acknowldgements for your uncle's generous proposal; but as my own happiness draws near, obstacles, previously hidden or unseen, multiply. Now, my poor mother would have this; now, that: she is unstable in her resolutions, but equally bent on their accomplishment while they last. Some unaccountable prepossesion seems to affect her. She appears averse to Thornley Hall, and, sometimes, O my Charles, even to you. Where it will all end, Heaven only knows."

XI.

""Tis as I had anticipated, yet feared to anticipate. My mother has suddenly come to the determination of disposing of this sweet place, and going to reside on the continent. Her health, she affirms, will be benefited by the change, and the arrangement better suited to our slender, though still sufficiently ample finances.

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