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lessly did Miss Belville almost daily bend her steps to the next village, treading with a firm and steady foot across the rugged and hilly ground she now imagined so perilous to approach. Long did she watch the agile form of young Mordaunt as he rapidly ascended the opposite hills: "how light and graceful are his movements, how full of joyous happiness!" thought Mary. "Will that face ever be less sunny, less open, less sincere than it is now? Is the chill of disappointed hopes and blighted prospects doomed in afteryears to cloud the unruffled calmness of that ingenuous brow?" A sigh escaped the bosom of the generous girl at the painful supposition. "He is poor," said she, thoughtfully, as she turned from the open window," and what may not a proud independent spirit like his be fated to endure."

CHAPTER III.

AMONG the many who experienced the benevolent kindness of the warm-hearted General, was an aged woman, to whom he had for many years evinced so much generosity, that the poor families who lived near her on the lone common, where her small white cottage was to be seen nearly covered with ivy, would frequently remark to each other, that it was a fine thing to have been a soldier's wife, when there was a general hard by who thought nothing too good for one that had followed

the camp.

Certain it was, that old Margaret

possessed more of the comforts of life than many of those around her. Margaret's husband had been a soldier, and the widow of a brave man was sure to find favour in the eyes of General Belville.

Walter Maynard, his steward, was requested to see that she never wanted for any thing. A neat little house was fitted up for her reception, and for fourteen years the old woman had been indebted to the humanity of the General for all that she possessed. Her gratitude was boundless; Mary and her father seemed necessary to her existence; without them the world would have been a blank, and the grateful heart of Margaret acknowledged in a hundred little nameless actions the intensity of her veneration and affection for her benefactor and his lovely child.

Mary, the adored and motherless infant of her revered general, who had sat for hours

with her fair face resting on her aged bosom,

was the beloved of her soul. What would have been the affliction of the old woman could she not have seen her daily, and have heard from her own sweet lips, that she was well and happy.

As the bosom friend and foster-sister of her idol, Cathleen Maynard possessed no small share of Margaret's love. Walter had ever seemed willing to bestow the good gifts of his master, and himself and daughter were not forgotten in the prayers of the widow. Both children had been in the habit of paying daily visits to the cottage of Margaret, both had for years called her by the endearing name of mother, and each of them felt that warm, that unchangeable affection for

the friend of their childhood, that time can never obliterate from the heart, while there remains one lingering thought of infancy's unclouded happy hours.

There was one trait in the character of Margaret which, as the graver Cathleen advanced to womanhood, gave her pain, and made her feel less free and cheerful in her presence. Margaret secretly professed to be a revealer of the secrets of futurity; she believed she inherited the second-sight! and Mary was delighted at the idea of gazing on the shadowy pages of the future. Henry the unknown, yet, nevertheless, dear Henry! how often did the giddy girl strain her bright eyes in vainly striving to discover his form in the magic glass of the mysterious Margaret! how often would the chill of disappointment blanch her blooming cheeks when