recourse to medical advice she only smiled and shook her head; yet, ever gentle and complying to the wishes of others, she was at length prevailed upon to receive the visits of a medical attendant, and her own feelings were but too faithfully confirmed by his opinion.  Being an old friend of the family, he took upon himself to communicate the intelligence to her son, then abroad with his regiment; and in the meantime Mary took up her residence at Rose Hall, and devoted herself unceasingly to the beloved friend she felt she was so soon to lose.

“Ah!  Mary,” she would sometimes say, “God forgive me! but my heart is not yet weaned from worldly wishes.  Even now, when I feel all the vanity of human happiness, I think how it would have soothed my last moments could I have but seen you my son’s before I left the world!  Yet, alas! our time here is so short that it matters little whether it be spent in joy or grief, provided it be spent in innocence and virtue.  Mine has been a long life compared to many; but when I look back upon it, what a span it seems!  And it is not the remembrance of its brightest days that are now a solace to my heart.  Dearest Mary, if you live long, you will live to think of the sad hours you have given me, as the fairest, of perhaps, of many a happy day that I trust Heaven has yet in store for you.  Yes!  God has made some whose powers are chiefly ordained to comfort the afflicted, and in fulfilling His will you must surly be blest.”

Mary listened to the half-breathed wishes of her dear old friend with painful feelings of regret and self-reproach.

“Charles Lennox loved me,” thought she, “truly, tenderly loved me; and had I but repaid his noble frankness—­had I suffered him to read my heart when he laid his open before me, I might now have gladdened the last days of the mother he adores.  I might have proudly avowed that affection I must now forever hide.”

But at the end of some weeks Mrs. Lennox was no longer susceptible of emotions either of joy or sorrow.  She gradually sank into a state of almost total insensibility, from which not even the arrival of her son had power to rouse her.  His anguish was extreme at finding his mother in a condition so perfectly hopeless; and every other idea seemed, for the present, absorbed in his anxiety for her.  As Mary witnessed his watchful cares and tender solicitude, she could almost have envied the unconscious object of such devoted attachment.

A few days after his arrival his leave of absence was abruptly recalled, and he was summoned to repair to headquarters with all possible expedition.  The army was on the move, and a battle was expected to be fought.  At such a time hesitation or delay, under any circumstances, would have been inevitable disgrace; and, dreadful as was the alternative, Colonel Lennox wavered not an instant in his resolution.  With a look of fixed agony, but without uttering a syllable, he put the letter into Mary’s hand