CHAPTER XII.

"Through your transient gaiety of manner and conversation I still discern the stationary weight which oppresses your heart, as through the fleeting waters of the stream are seen the rocks which lie motionless beneath."

"ESPÉRANCE, jeunesse, bonheur, douces illusions du cœur, c'en est donc fait!" Yes-thus it was with Mrs. Bently. No creature ever entered life with a more vivid imagination or more ardent hopes than she did; but a series of blighting disappointments to those earthplaced hopes, had, as one may say, slain hope. Early youth had fled, leaving the sea of her past life strewn thickly with the wrecks of her schemes of happiness; and as to those beautiful

and seducing illusions of fresh, generous feeling-they were gone-fled, to return no more. She had at length awaked from the dream of life to its stern, cold realities. And poor Jessy knew of no hope, no happiness, beyond this fleeting life. Sedley was her past, present, and future, and her ill-regulated mind found not sufficient strength to shake off its thraldom.

Oh, it is a wearisome, a sad task, to school and discipline the heart-to root out feelings which have been cherished from infancy-to lock within the breast the one thought which colours our whole existence- to feel that the affection we had fed and gloried in, has become all at once criminal and dangerous-to find in one moment, that our long, deep hopes have been vain, erroneous, deceitful to discover

that we can be easily forgotten in return for our unselfish devotion;-oh! it is very hard. And yet, if we look around us in the world, and search in the dim eyes of faded loveliness, many are the records we may there read of

such unhappy fate. But in her utmost sorrow, and under her deepest injuries, how seldom does misanthropy corrode the generous heart of woman! It is a most dangerous spirit, gradually destroying all that is soft and lovely in the character and ossifying all within.

There is a forgiving spirit inseparable from the very nature of woman, which prevents misanthropy from ever taking such deadly root in her breast, even should it enter there, as it will in the tougher nature of man. Let her be undone, betrayed, forsaken under the most aggravating circumstances, trampled on, insulted-let her be reduced by her destroyer to abject want, her beauty faded, her youth prematurely blighted, and her hopes of happiness here and hereafter annihilated;-let all this be, and, if possible, more than all this, yet will one kind word, one soft tone, one glance as of old, from the author of all her woes, efface the memory of her wrongs in a moment; her enduring affection will rekindle, and her lips will utter no reproach. And if

he who deserted her in her extremity, and turned a deaf ear to the cry of her agony-if he should be overtaken by retributive justice, if sickness, want, or sorrow should enter his dwelling, she will be found, like his guardianangel, tending him with unwearied, unchanging love, and depriving herself of the commonest necessaries, if, by so doing, she can procure And should she close his eyes should she witness his last agony, her mourning will not be clamorous, but deep, deep!

him

ease.

Major Bently's country seat was situate in one of the most uninteresting parts of one of the most uninteresting counties in England, and the society of the neighbourhood was equally devoid of interest. The few families within the Bentlys' reach were cold, formal, or proud; and as the Major was not rich enough to vie with them, and could not entertain exactly in the same style of magnificence with themselves, and, moreover, as he had no great connexions to throw a lustre on his name, he and his

wife were just tolerated by the stately families where they visited.

To Jessy all this was detestable, and her proud, reserved manner towards her haughty neighbours, by no means tended to increase her popularity. She wrote thus to a friend, describing her first morning visit in the country: "We drove, by invitation, twenty miles to call on Mrs. Dennis Granby, at Granbyhouse. It is an old English place, and the arrangement of the rooms gives a most formal, unenjoyable appearance to the interior. Nothing can be more fascinating than that delightful mélange of work, music, books, drawings, and various petits objets which one sees in a comfortable unformal family. Mrs. Granby Dennis is detestable, so rude, and cold, and hard in her manner, and the younger part of the family seemed to think our visit a most tiresome interruption, as when we were about to take our departure their spirits rose twenty per The daughter is pretty, though somewhat of a giantess, but her conversation is not

cent.