ever touched. But yours is not that spirit, dear Mrs. St. Aubyn," she continued with affectionate interest; “you are formed for something better than the pursuits of this world-you seek to find or to regain the peace you once possessed-you will regain it, doubt not."

"God is indeed merciful! most merciful!" said Catherine, raising her eyes with the fervour of sincere devotion. “Matilda, pray that he will guide and comfort me now, for I am called upon for such a sacrifice!-Oh, such a sacrifice!" and she clasped her hands together as she spoke. “Oh, such a sacrifice!"

"A sacrifice!" Matilda repeated in accents of surprise.

As briefly as her excited feelings would permit, Mrs. St. Aubyn (of course without alluding to the reasons she believed to influence her son's desire) related to Matilda what had passed between them on the subject of his departure to the East.

But astonishment and regret at hearing of such a project, for a long time kept Matilda silent; nor could she, when she did speak, do otherwise than express unwillingness that it should proceed.

"Yet," said she after a short pause, "I would not be understood to offer any opinion upon so important a point. I cannot be an adviser, since I am much too deeply interested in the question. Your own regret, at the loss of such a son, cannot be much greater than mine at parting with so dear a friend, so very dear," she repeated, as she thought of his many acts of kindness and regard.

"Ah, would that he"-but Mrs. St. Aubyn check

ed herself, ere she had added, "would that he had been as dear to you, as I could have wished, and this sacrifice I should never have been called upon to offer."

"But if his heart be set upon this measure," said Matilda; "if it be, as you admit, greatly for his temporal interest, and if he believes, and you incline to believe, that it is his duty to follow it, as a direction from the Almighty, who shall attempt to interrupt it by advice, or entreaty, or selfish considerations? I dare not," she added in a voice that trembled at the supposition; and which imparted to the already wavering mind of Mrs. St. Aubyn, a still stronger desire to be enabled to submit to what she conceived, might be the leading of Providence: yet naturę struggled within her for indulgence.

"Oh, had it been any thing but this, Matilda," she said, "I could well have yielded it up. But my son, my only son!

"Ah, it is a bitter trial!-it is, indeed, a bitter trial," said Matilda; "do you think I do not feel for you, dear Mrs. St. Aubyn?" and she looked upon her with tearful eyes. "If I then pity your conflict-if I, a poor incapable, helpless creature, would do all and every thing within my means to strengthen and comfort you think of Him who looks upon you with power as well as pity. Oh, he is able and willing to recompense you an hundred-fold, for all that you can resign to Him; and though it be the right eye, or the right arm that we are called upon to cast from us, it is the means, perhaps, by which we are to enter upon life. If we must toil, and labour, and suffer, and endure for temporal enjoyments, is everlasting

happiness to be procured without sacrifice-without price?"

"Oh, no-no," said Catherine, "how often has my poor Ann repeated to me, when, impatient of suffering, I repined, and thought my fate hard-how often has she recalled to me that text of Scripture. through much tribulation ye shall enter into life."" “And well did she recal it to you," said Matilda. "How few have been the days in which those heavenly words have not been given to me as the solace of every woe. Dear Mrs. St. Aubyn, let us lay them to our hearts, and life will have few overpowering griefs for either of us."

"Life for you, my love," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, "is but just begun; for me it is well nigh ended: yet as both disciples in the school of affliction, as both walking in the same path, we may each learn something from the other.

66 You have given me to-night, Matilda, more comfort than for a long, long time, I have suffered myself to receive; for I have flown from these things which, after all, will pursue and overtake us, however we seek to escape from considering them. And I shall, one day, have a lesson to give to you, but perhaps not yet," she proceeded with less solemnity, observing Matilda's anxious gaze; "perhaps not yet-I thought of my death-bed as not far distantbut God's will be done !" and she led the way home. wards, speaking no more till they arrived within the precincts of the town, by which time she had regained nearly her usual state of composure.

CHAPTER X.

MRS. ST. AUBYN did not again revert to the conversation we have just related; her mind appeared to Matilda to be absorbed in some ideas which she wished not to discuss with another, but to meditate upon in silence and solitude. In a few days from the period we spoke of in the last chapter, Mr. St. Aubyn came down, bringing with him a letter from Charles, desiring Matilda's speedy return. Her anxiety to know what he was doing, of which, in all his communications since their parting, he had given but very brief and obscure hints, made her willing to avail herself of this summons, and on the following day she prepared to obey it. Her situation at parting with such friends as Mrs. St. Aubyn and her son, was indeed a very painful one; going, as she too surely felt she was, to encounter a tide of trouble, which it was her fate to stem alone, for from her husband she had no aid to expect. This division of feeling and sentiment between them was the great source of all her misery, and constituted for her that species of sorrow, which in the catalogue of human evils is doubtless the greatest, a marriage unblest with mutual respect and esteem; all other griefs have some alleviation, but this has none, unless when brought to that extremity which separates the ill

assorted pair. To this extremity Matilda believed she could have died before she had yielded. Her marriage vow was registered in her heart, and to respect it formed the most sacred of her duties. It was this strong principle which made her so tenacious of the character of her deluded husband, that in all her intercourse with Mrs. St. Aubyn his name had never been uttered with any word of bitterness. It was not difficult indeed to perceive that the St. Aubyns beheld his conduct with great disapprobation; but the shield of protection which Matilda had thrown around him, in her firm adherence to her du. ty, caused him in her presence to be spoken of always with compassion. But silent as she was upon the nature of her sufferings, no disguise could conceal the deep disappointment which was preying upon her heart; and had she poured forth the most minute account of all that was passing in her mind, Mrs. St. Aubyn could not better have understood it than from the few words which in parting broke from her, as it were involuntarily :

"God bless you, my dear Mrs. St. Aubyn ; and if ever again I seem to be neglectful of you, do not believe that I am so. Recollect that I cannot always"

But fearful of herself-fearful that nature would have her way, and that she must throw herself upon the sympathetic bosom of her friend, and say at once, "recollect that I am the most wretched of wives, and forgive me every offence I may seem to commit against you;" fearful that some such burst of anguish would escape her, she turned from her to take the farewel of Mr. St. Aubyn; out when she