which reflected these circumstances as vividly, as though she saw them in reality.

"Ah!” she said, sighing, "those were happy days, happier than the present; but we are not to ask why the former days were better than these, for we do not reason wisely concerning these things. Oh! no not wisely; but the heart will sometimes rebel, and will unawares lift us as it were out of ourselves, and carry us back to past scenes, to linger there precisely where we had better not pause one moment."

Thus did Lady Emily mingle reason with feeling; but the remembrance of her first interview with Lord Mowbray could not, would not, be effaced. The vagrant hat which he redeemed; her amusement in seeing it fly over hedge and dale, eluding his pursuit; their subsequent acquaintance; their growing intimacy; the little mystery of the fording the streamlet, too rudely and too soon disclosed-all these, together with a distinct recollection of the air, the mein, the tone of voice, of him whom she imagined held no longer any place in her re

membrance, rushed over with a subduing power, and chained her back to all the pleasures, and all the pains of memory.

Not that Lady Emily had never thought of Lord Mowbray till now. Oh, no—he had, after her first quitting London, too constantly and too painfully occupied her mind. She had blamed, and exonerated him alternately in regard to his conduct towards herself, and she had but too carefully taken note in her heart's tablet of every gesture, every look, every half-broken expression, which had implied a history of sentiments and whole chronicles of feelings. With the aid, however, of mortified pride, that delicate pride of the heart's first purity which

"Would be wooed and not unsought be won," she had sedulously stifled and veiled these intruding thoughts, till she supposed them banished for ever; but there are attachments, indigenous as it were to the human heart, which, like that of certain plants to particular spots, after they are cut off and dug out root and branch, will throw forth suckers from some hidden fibres as tenacious of the soil as though

they had remained the cherished tenants of the ground, and been suffered to form themselves

.

into gigantic trees. Where these exist, they may be repelled, crushed, torn, mutilated, defaced; but they will adhere to their position, while the breath of life remains, destined, perhaps, to flourish hereafter.

Certain it is, that a vision of Lord Mowbray stood before Lady Emily, as vividly portrayed as though some wizard had evoked it on purpose to trouble that serenity which she had so wisely endeavoured to attain; and by the time she reached her home, she was as languid and fatigued as though she had walked beyond her strength. In vain she endeavoured to rally herself from this overcoming and unreasonable depression, and to talk to her uncle cheerfully of the beauty of the season an the scene. Her wits wandered; her words did not flow naturally; and General Montgomery once or twice asked her if she were not well. To dispel this his anxiety, she proposed to read him his favourite Evelyn's "Sylva;" she fixed her eyes on the page, and her

thoughts floating any where rather than engaged on her actual employment, she wondered why the history of her dear forest tribes no longer possessed the power to interest, or rivet her attention. Still she continued to read, and she saw that the inquiring glances which her uncle sent forth from time to time on her countenance, became less frequent, as the quiet music of her voice soothed him into the belief, that whatever had occurred to agitate her, had subsided; and under this impression, he suffered himself to be beguiled into his afternoon's slumber.

When he dropped asleep, Lady Emily paused; but observing him about to awake she resumed her book, and, with patient pertinacity, courted the soundness of his slumber by continuing, in her ringdove murmuring voice, to read on, till she was startled by hearing a rustling among the leaves of the woodbine that encircled the window. At the same moment, her favourite greyhound started from its cushion, and, rushing furiously towards the spot, leaped on the table which stood beneath the casement, barking loudly.

The General awoke; Lady Emily laid aside her book, and, running to the door, called in considerable alarm to their servant Edwards to know if any stranger had approached their dwelling, when she recollected with some anxiety that he had that day gone to Bristol. At the same moment, she found herself running against a person whose well-known voice thrilled to her very soul; and the next instant Lord Mowbray himself advanced, apologizing for his abrupt intrusion.

"It is indeed," he said, "I fear, almost inadmissible to have taken such a liberty, but I met Edwards by chance in Bristol;" (he blushed as he spoke ;)" and learning from him that Lady Emily and you, my dear Sir, were living so near, I could not resist the pleasure of making these inquiries in person: may I hope to be pardoned ?"

General Montgomery's manner in a moment dispelled any fears he might have entertained of not being a welcome visitor; and a glance that he stole at Lady Emily, although it did. not speak security of welcome, still satisfied