and as such, I believe, received very differently to what I should have been as the rector; and anxious to know exactly the state of my parishioners, thought, in the humble capacity, they had taken me, I might better do this. In calling to see your mother, who, I thought, from her previous good deeds in the parish, was likely to be an efficient adviser, I was invited to tea, and from the conversation of both you and her, I found, that while as the curate I should have free intercourse at the cottage, as the Hon. Frederic Eardly the doors would be closed on me; added to this, was a lurking hope that I might, eventually, gain your affections, and know that you loved me for myself alone. Your reserve however, dispelled, for a time, that illusion. Beatrice Trevor came and threw out lures I could not resist, and I was fairly entrapped; however, I will not dwell on what has led to such happy results. Bennet, alone, knows my secret." 

 Lady Eardly now took an affectionate leave. She had brought a splendid wedding dress for Ethelind, but her son insisted on her wearing the plain white muslin she had herself prepared. 

 A union founded on such a basis, could not fail to bring as much real happiness as mortals, subject to the vicissitudes of life, could expect. Frederic Eardly passed many years of usefulness in his native place, aided, in many of his good works, by his amiable wife. But though blessed with many earthly comforts, they were not without their trials, they had a promising family, but two or three were early recalled; and in proportion to their affection for these interesting children, was their grief at the severed links in the chain of earthly love. The mother, perhaps, felt more keenly than the father, but both knew they were blessings only lent, and they bowed submissively. 

 Beatrice was not heard of for some time, though Ethelind wrote repeatedly, and named her second girl after her, and some eight or ten years afterwards a letter came, written by Beatrice as she lay on her death–bed, to be given to her little namesake on her seventeenth birth–day. She left her all her jewels and a sum of money, but the letter was the most valuable bequest, as it pointed out the errors into which she had fallen, and their sad results. She had, it would seem, accompanied the friend abroad to whose marriage she had gone, and had once more marred her own prospects of happiness by her folly, and once more had she injured the peace of others. Farther she might have gone on, had she not sickened with the small–pox, of a most virulent kind; she ultimately recovered; but her transcendent beauty was gone, and she had now 

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