A few weeks only had elapsed, after the festive scene we have portrayed in a former chapter, when one morning Ella, on entering her mother’s chamber, which adjoined her own, was surprised to find, for the hour was unusually late, that she had not yet risen.  With noiseless step she approached the couch, and with gentle hand drew back the curtain, thinking to wake her by a kiss, when, terrible spectacle to her affectionate heart, she beheld her idolized mother, not sleeping as she had expected, but every lineament transfixed and motionless in death!  An apoplectic fit,—­so the physician affirmed,—­must have seized her during the watches of the night, and thus, suddenly and fearfully, had she been called to her final account.  We draw a veil over that mournful scene, for “too sacred is it for a stranger’s eye.”

On her children its effect was deep and lasting.  Ella especially seemed sinking beneath the blow, and her brother, fearing for her reason, if not her life, with gentle violence almost compelled her to bid adieu to her native city, and, accompanied by him, seek, in change of scene, some alleviation for the grief that preyed so deeply on her spirit.

CHAPTER VI.

The steamboat wharf of the town of Elton was truly a scene of busy life.  The steamer was making full preparations for the embarkation of passengers to a distant city; and the wharf was crowded with bales of goods, casks of water, cabs, trucks, &c.  Business men were hurrying to and fro, sailors were shouting to each other, and friends were hastily clambering up the plank and springing on deck to remain a few minutes longer, if possible, with those from, whom they were so soon to be severed, “it might be for years, and it might be forever.”

But the bell has rung once, twice, its warning note, and now, for the third time, it peals out on the clear air.  The last clasp of the hand, the hurried embrace, the fervent “God bless you,” is given, and those who are to remain have trodden the plank, regained the wharf, and now turn, before departing to their respective homes, to take a farewell glance at the steamer, as she moves slowly and gracefully away, bearing, it may be, from many their heart’s most cherished idols.  The passengers are assembled on deck, watching the receding shores, and many handkerchiefs are waving a last response to those eager glances, an adieu which, alas, few there dream shall prove final to so many.

At the farther end of the deck, close by the railing, is seated a lady in travelling costume.  She is alone, for her companion, an elderly gentleman, has left her to salute a friend whose face he had just recognized among the crowd of passengers.

“A lady accompanies you, I see,” was the remark made to Mr. Cameron by his friend, the Rev. Mr. Dunseer, after the first salutations were over.

“Yes, Miss Wiltshire, from B——.

“Miss Wiltshire?  I thought I recognized the countenance as one I had seen before.”