“Ah!” thought Mary, “were they to behold that face now, how changed would it appear!” as she contrasted it with the portrait that hung immediately over the head of the original.  The one in all the brightness of youth—­the radiant eyes, the rounded cheek, the fair open brow, spoke only of hope, and health, and joy.  Those eyes were now dimmed by sorrow; the cheek was wasted with toil; the brow was clouded by cares.  Yet, “as it is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot express,” [1] so there is something superior to the mere charms of form and colour; and an air of high-toned feeling, of mingled vivacity and sensibility, gave a grandeur to the form and an expression to the countenance which more than atoned for the want of youth’s more brilliant attributes.

[1] Lord Bacon.

At least, so thought Mary; but her comparisons were interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Lennox.  Her son flew towards her, and taking her arm from that of her attendant, led her to her seat, and sought to render her those little offices which her helplessness required.

“My dear Charles,” said she, with a smile, as he tried to adjust her cushions, “your hands have not been used to this work.  Your arm is my best support, but a gentler hand must smooth my pillow.  Mary, my love, where are—?  Give me your hand.”  Then placing it in that of her son—­ “Many a tear has this hand wiped from your mother’s eyes!”

Mary, blushing deeply, hastily withdrew it.  She felt it as a sort of appeal to Colonel Lennox’s feelings; and a sense of wounded delicacy made her shrink from being thus recommended to his gratitude.  But Colonel Lennox seemed too much absorbed in his own painful reflections to attach such a meaning to his mother’s words; and though they excited him to regard Mary for a moment with peculiar interest, yet, in a little while, he relapsed into the mournful reverie from which he had been roused.

Colonel Lennox was evidently not a show-off character.  He seemed superior to the mere vulgar aim of making himself agreeable—­an aim which has much oftener its source in vanity than in benevolence.  Yet the exerted himself to meet his mother’s cheerfulness; though as often as he looked at her, or raised his eyes to the youthful group that hung before them, his changing hue and quivering lip betrayed the anguish he strove to hide.

Breakfast ended, Mary rose to prepare for her departure, in spite of the solicitations of her friend that she should remain till the following day.

“Surely, my dear Mary,” said she in an imploring accent, “you will not refuse to bestow one day of happiness upon me?—­and it is such a happiness to see my Charles and you together.  I little thought that ever I should have been so blessed.  Ah!  I begin to think God has yet some good in store for my last days!  Do not then leave me just when I am beginning to taste of joy!”—­And she clung to her with that pathetic look which Mary had ever found irresistble.