she glanced her eye on a portrait that hung on the opposite wall.  It represented an officer habited in the full uniform of her father’s regiment.  She next looked at the negro, who, amid his unchecked sorrow, had been an attentive observer of her every action, and pointed expressively first to her kneeling children, and then to the portrait.  The black seemed to understand her meaning; for he made a sign of acquiescence.  She then extended her hand to him, which he kissed, and bedewed with his tears, and retreated sobbing to his position near the foot of the bed.  Two minutes afterwards, Mrs. Grantham had breathed her last, but so insensibly that, although every eye was fixed upon her, no one could tell the precise moment at which she had ceased to exist.

We will pass over the deep grief which preyed upon the hearts of the unfortunate brothers, for weeks after they had been compelled to acknowledge the stern truth that they were indeed motherless.  Those who have, at that tender age, known what it is to lose an affectionate mother, and under circumstances at all similar to those just described, will be at no loss to comprehend the utter desolation of their bruised spirits:  to those who have not sustained this most grievous of human afflictions, it would be a waste of time to detail what cannot possibly be understood, save through the soul-withering ordeal of alike experience.

If, in early youth, however, the impressions of sorrow are more lively, so is the return to hope more rapid.  Time, and the elasticity of spirit common to their years, gradually dissipated the cloud of melancholy that had rested on the hearts of the Canadian Brothers; and, although they never ceased to lament their mother with that tenderness and respect which her many virtues, and love for them especially, demanded, still did their thoughts gradually take the bias to which a variety of outward and important circumstances afterwards directed them.  It was soon after this event, that the first seeds of disunion began to spring up between England and the United States, the inevitable results of which, it was anticipated, would be the involving of Canada in the struggle; and, notwithstanding the explosion did not take place for several years afterwards, preparations were made on either shore, to an extent that kept the spirit of enterprise constantly on the alert.

Inheriting the martial spirit of their family, the inclinations of the young Granthams led them to the service; and, as their father could have no reasonable objection to oppose to a choice which promised hot merely to secure his sons in an eligible profession, but to render them in some degree of benefit to their country, he consented to their views.  Gerald’s preference leading him to the navy, he was placed on that establishment as a midshipman; while Henry, several years later, obtained, through the influence of their father’s old friend General Brock, an Ensigncy in the ——­ Regiment then quartered at Amherstburg.