she remembered also, and the recollection sent a thrill of pleasure through her heart, that he had fondly drawn herself and his child to his breast only that very morning; and there was so much tenderness in the action, and in the manner of it, that she felt his heart was not irretrievably gone from her.

Her aunt left her, satisfied that her advice would be attended to, and indulged no slight portion of self-complacency on its forethought and prudence, and the good result it was likely to produce.

Lady Mordaunt, deeply penetrated with a sense of her own imprudence, and most anxious to atone for it, greeted her husband, when she next saw him, with a contrite tenderness, that might have led an observer to imagine that she had a much stronger motive for self-reproach than the one that actuated her present conduct; while he, conscious that his fault, though the natural effect of hers, was of a much deeper dye than the error that occasioned it, was sensibly touched by the gentleness and affection of her reception.

"How is our boy, my own Emily?" asked Lord Mordaunt. "Do let me see the dear little fellow, for I am determined to give him frequent opportunities of getting accustomed to my face-ay, and to my embraces too, that he may no more be alarmed at either."

"And I, dearest Algernon," replied the delighted wife, "am determined to be always ready to go with you, where and when you will; if, indeed, you can overlook my folly in having, ever since our boy was born, ceased to be your companion, or to render your home as happy as it ought to be."

She was clasped in her fond husband's arms before she had concluded the sentence; and from that day he ceased to maintain any other correspondence with Lady Dorrington, than the mere ceremonious one of occasionally leaving a card at her door.

Thenceforward, too, Lady Mordaunt, while fulfilling with judicious attention all the duties of a fond mother, never ceased to remember and to discharge those of a wife.

VOL. III.

L

219

THE CHALET IN THE ALPS:

A TALE OF HUMBLE LIFE.

In a secluded spot, in the wild and desolate regions of the Alps, dwelt two families, the only inhabitants of the place. The two chalets occupied by them, and a few patches of land laboured into fertility by hardy and incessant toil, with a herd of goats, which sought their scanty food wherever the rare and stunted herbage appeared, were the only symptoms of human habitation visible for some miles. A more dreary spot can hardly be imagined, than that where the chalets stood. Winter reigned there with despotic force during nine months of

the year; and the approach of summer was hailed with a delight known only to those who have languished for its presence through many a long and cheerless day, surrounded by the dreary attributes of the gloomy season.

Mountain rising over mountain, covered with eternal snow, and divided by yawning chasms, whose depths none had ever ventured to penetrate, met the eye at every side; the intermediate prospect only broken by the presence of a few hardy tannen and pine trees, whose darkgreen foliage formed a striking contrast to the snowy mantle, which, like the funeral pall of dead nature, covered the earth for nearly three parts of the year.

The first symptom of vegetation was wel comed in this wild spot, as the first-born is by a mother who has long pined for offspring; and, as the rays of the sun melted the frozen surface of the mountains, and sent a thousand sparkling streams rushing down their sides, falling with a pleasant sound into the deep glens beneath, the hearts of the inhabitants of