It is to woman we naturally look for consolation in affliction; from her alone it is not mortifying to receive compassion. Man's pity hurts our pride; woman's, like oil shed upon the billows, stills the heart.

When the ladies descended to dinner, Lucy's eyes were still red, but she had mastered the violent emotion which the unexpected change in my appearance had excited in the morning. She sat beside me with her hand clasped in mine, as if desirous to receive stronger evidence than her sight afforded her of the reality of my presence. I saw she had resolved to be calm, and made strenuous efforts to be so, yet every now and then, when she thought herself unperceived, she stole a glance at my countenance, and I saw again that the tears were brimming in her eyes. Laura Willoughby, I thought, looked paler than I had seen her of old. She sat with downcast eyes, but when she spoke she raised them on me, with a melting expression of kindness, melancholy yet soothing, and there was tenderness in every tone of her finely modulated voice.

At Middlethorpe I was the engrossing object of interest to all. Willoughby was partial to field

sports, in which I was too ill to participate, and his pursuits led him to be much abroad. My exercise did not at first extend beyond a walk in the park, or a short ride on a favourite shooting pony. Even these, however, I was not suffered to make alone. When on foot, Lucy walked with me, and was unhappy if I accepted not the support of her arm. When I rode, her hand was on the bridle, guiding the steps of the docile animal on the smoothest path.

Nor was Laura less assiduous than Lucy in rendering me all those little offices of kindness, trifling perhaps in themselves, yet deeply prized, because they evidently proceeded from a warm and an affectionate heart.

Cold is his spirit who feels no flattering emotion in knowing himself the engrossing object of the ministering cares of two young and beautiful women. Their hands were ever ready to arrange the pillows on my couch; and there were moments, as I beheld their graceful forms hovering around it, when my heart almost ceased to be forlorn, and its pulses beat as they had once been wont. Never, indeed, for a moment was I absent from their thoughts. My wants required no expression, for

they anticipated them all. When dull and dispirited, they soothed me by their kind sympathy. On our return from walking, when my weary limbs required repose, Laura Willoughby would sing, for me, to the accompaniment of her harp, or read aloud a novel of Miss Austin or Miss Edgeworth, while Lucy sat at my feet, watching every look, and imagining little offices of kindness.

Frank Willoughby's prediction was in some measure verified. Before a month elapsed, my health was, indeed, greatly improved, but there was a barbed arrow in my heart, that could not be withdrawn.

CHAPTER X.

Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play in prosperous gales,
And Fortune's favour fills the swelling sails?
And would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?

PRIOR.

I HAD been some weeks at Middlethorpe, when I received the following letter from Lady Melicent. It was addressed to me in Lisbon, and from thence had been returned to England:

"YOUR last melancholy letter, my dearest Cyril, has cost me many tears. The thought of all you have endured, and the evident depression of your spirits when you wrote, have caused me deep uneasiness, and must continue to do so till I receive happy tidings of your recovery. Believe me, I

deeply sympathise in all your sufferings. Would to God, that, by any sacrifice of mine, I could assauge your pain, and restore you to happiness!

"I know and appreciate the generous motives that prompted you to resign all thoughts of our union; and believe me, though I consent that our engagement should cease, the motives which actuate me are altogether unconnected with the personal misfortunes you describe yourself to have suffered. Oh, no. Altered as you may be, in my eyes you must ever have remained unchanged; nor could any loss of personal advantages have induced me to swerve from promises so solemnly plighted.

་

"But perhaps we were rash in forming that engagement. I confess, that difficulties which appeared small at a distance, seem almost insurmountable on a nearer approach. I now perceive that the hope so long and fondly cherished, of obtaining my father's consent to our union, is vain ; nor, were I to marry against his wishes, could I ever hope for his forgiveness.

"It is for these reasons, and these alone, my dear Cyril, that I now consent to break off our correspondence. Let us no longer think or write