party prevented her seeing her new friend in private the last evening, and she wished her adieu on the following morning without entering into the circumstances which induced her sudden departure. Cordially and with regret parting with Sir Harvey, she found herself on the morrow leaving Brighton and its various reminiscences behind her, and hourly diminishing the distance between herself and her home. Lady Woodash had, she felt, been at least guilty of a breach of hospitality, but her feeble conscience scarcely uttered reproaches. How dangerous is a slumbering state of existence ! CHAPTER XIII. "How vainly seek The selfish for that happiness denied To aught but virtue! Blind and hardened they THE future to which Mary Graham looked forward in this world was not, could not be, happy, for bewildering perplexities harassed her daily path, yet Graham would willingly have exchanged his feelings for those of the VOL. I. T meek and enduring being whose young life he had contrived so completely to overshadow. She had to endure-but though she suffered, she did not repine at her lot. Her destinies were linked with one whose irritable, discontented temper was ever seeking to wreak itself on her, and discovering causes of quarrel and annoyance. Deeply indeed she deplored her incapacity to influence her husband for good, and, to one of her affectionate and naturally timid disposition, the non-exercise, the absolute subduing and repressing of her best and purest feelings was unspeakably painful. On her child she had hitherto lavished the love which yearned for an object on which it could expand. Living so much in retirement as she did, her time had been principally devoted to the improvement of her own mind, and to the development of all Eustace's youthful energies. But even her natural affection was destined to be, though a source of comfort, yet mingled with anxiety. Eustace inherited, with his father's features and outward bearing, much of his perverse and irritable temperament when under the influence of control or disappointment, though at times his mother herself could not be more gentle, yielding, and loving. Alas! that nature, having produced so perfect a piece of workmanship as Mary Graham, should, in her variable mood, have broken up the mould and stamped her future coinage with the legible characters of frail humanity. The same dark, rolling eye, the same contraction of the brow, the same proofs of determined will, were at times visible alike in father and child. But with what energy and with what success did his mother instil those principles into Eustace which Graham in his youth had never been taught! The child of prayers and tears, he was an all-absorbing interest. The child of fears, rather than of hopes,— it was that very fear which was the groundwork of Mrs. Graham's almost more than maternal tenderness. To work unceasingly, to undermine in secret the effects of his father's example, to warn against evil, as a whole, without inspiring a dislike towards the authors of evil, to inculcate both love and respect for his father, because he was his father, was a task to accomplish which Mary's energies were both required and directed. And she was successful; the mild and patient example she gave to all around could not be unfruitful, though "patience must have her perfect work." She knew that Eustace idolized her, and on the stable foundation of filial affection she built her hopes of future reward. Yet her task was most difficult. Who so quick in observation, truthful in argument, and prompt in conclusion as a child? Who so prone to discover and unmask deceit ? To whom are so legibly revealed the opposing characters of virtue and vice ?—and to whom is the counterfeit of affection so utterly worthless? Why? Because a child looks straight for |