With all the grateful fondness of earlier years did Mrs. Myrvin look up in her mother’s face, as she thus spoke, and press her hand in hers.

“Not even yet have you ceased to penetrate my thoughts, my dearest mother,” she replied; “from childhood unto the present hour you have read my countenance as an open book.”

“And have not you, too, learned that lesson, my child?  Is it not to you your gentle, timid Caroline clings most fondly?  Is it not to you Herbert comes with his favourite book, and Allan with his tales of glee?  Minnie’s mirth is not complete unless she meets your smile, and even little Florence looks for some sign of sympathy.  You have not found the task so difficult, that you should wonder I should love it?”

“For those beloved ones, oh, what would I not do?” said Mrs. Myrvin, in a tone of animated fervour, and turning her glistening eyes on her mother, she added, “My own mother, marriage may bring with it new tics, new joys, but, oh, who can say it severs the first bright links of life between a mother and a child? it is now, only now, I feel how much you loved me.”

“May your children be to you what mine have ever been to me, my Emmeline; I can wish you no greater blessing,” replied Mrs. Hamilton, in a tone of deep emotion, and twining Emmeline’s arm in hers, they joined Mrs. Greville and Miss Harcourt, who were standing together near the pianoforte, where Edith Seymour, the latter’s younger niece, a pleasing girl of seventeen, was good-naturedly playing the music of the various dances which Lord Lyle and Herbert Myrvin were calling in rapid succession.  In another part of the room Alfred Greville and Laura Seymour were engaged in such earnest conversation, that Lord Delmont indulged in more than one joke at their expense, of which, however, they were perfectly unconscious; and this had occurred so often, that many of Mrs. Greville’s friends entertained the hope of seeing the happiness now so softly and calmly imprinted on her expressive features, very shortly heightened by the union of her now truly estimable son with an amiable and accomplished young woman, fitted in all respects to supply the place of the daughter she had lost.

And what had these seven years done for the Countess of Delmont, who had completely won the delighted kiss and smiles of Minnie Myrvin, by joining in all her frolics, and finally accepting Allan’s blushing invitation, and joining the waltz with him, to the admiration of all the children.  The girlish vivacity of Lilla Grahame had not deserted Lady Dolmont; conjugal and maternal love had indeed softened and subdued a nature, which in early years had been perhaps too petulant; had heightened yet chastened sensibility.  Never was happiness more visibly impressed or more keenly felt than by the youthful Countess.  Her husband, in his extreme fondness, had so fostered her at times almost childish glee, that he might have unfitted her for her duties, had not the mild counsels, the example of his sister, Miss Fortescue, turned aside the threatening danger, and to all the fascination of early childhood Lady Delmont united the more solid and enduring qualities of pious, well-regulated womanhood.