CHAPTER XVIII.

IT was the ordination of Providence, that Matilda's fate should be one of trial and of disappointment. But, enlightened by religious principle, strong, fervent, and sincere, she was, about this time, enabled to bear up against a visitation, severe enough to any bosom in which the new and delightful hopes of parental love have been cherished, but doubly severe to the anxious wife, who, in anticipating the hour of suffering, sees in the expected babe a tender tie, which, in the fond dream of hope and fancy, is to reclaim its wandering father, and cement the love that vain temptations had assailed.

This vision had, for many tedious months, been the solace for much sorrow. Charles was most anxious for a son: and she believed, with the credulity of one whose very existence hangs upon hope, that were she blessed with children, a new direction would be given to his warm affections, and, having a determined object, they would become concentred at home. But this gift was only bestowed to be taken away! The boon of " many a prayer" was granted -the tenderly desired son arrived; but only to prove to his mother's sorrowful, but pious heart, that she "knew not what she had asked."

By her devout temper, early and constantly habituated to refer every event to the dispensation of her

maker, the loss of her child a few days after his birth, though an affliction of the heaviest nature, was regarded principally as the means of hallowing her mind, and bringing every repining murmur into subjection.

Charles had no such resources in his trial; upon him, therefore, it fell with peculiar heaviness. Matilda had never seen him so truly dejected as upon this occasion. She resolved, the first moment which offered, after her returning strength permitted such an effort (if indeed the interval of a few days did not, in restoring him to old pursuits and his usual spirits, obviate all chance of her having any opportunity of speaking,) she resolved to take advantage of his state of feeling, and addressing him, for the first time, in a religious strain, endeavour to soften a heart which, however generous and affectionate in its natural emotions, was yet she grieved to be compelled to dread, on spiritual things "a heart of

stone."

"There, there!" she would exclaim, "is the solution of all! Oh, what hope!-what expectation can there be of one who lives without God in the world!'-Had I but sufficiently thought of this!had I but considered!-But it was ordained-and who shall say that he is yet beyond the reach of these things? I have been too passive-I might perhaps have prevailed. If I could but get him to think-oh, if it were but given me !"-and, full of her pious purpose, she mused over it with hope scarce less intense than that with which she had watched the promise of the cherished one, so recently ghted.

A moment arrived-as she believed an auspicious

one.

She was now sufficiently recovered to change her apartment for her dressing-room adjoining to it; where she was frequently visited by her mother, who, in possession of two or three children, whom she had severally, as they made their appearance, considered as supernumeraries, came every day to repeat, for her daughter's consolation, the usual common-place, that nobody can die at a better stage of life than infancy.

It was not indeed difficult to discover that she considered the loss of the poor baby as rather a fortunate occurrence; but the view she took on this side of the subject being rather narrow, and nothing but a very exalted one sufficing to reconcile his death to his disappointed mother, it was rather a relief than otherwise, when Mrs. Belgrave, having finished her remarks, rung for her carriage, and made her exit. "I could almost wish that your mother would not come so constantly, love," said Charles, after she had departed from one of these consolation. we knew before; and, I think, she only leaves you ten times more unhappy than she found you."

"She certainly says

morning visits of

nothing but what

"Come, my dear girl," he continued with earnest affection, kissing her as he spoke, and wiping from her pale cheek the tears that streamed from it; "do not be thus dejected! Cheer up, Matty, you shall never shed another tear if I can help it. I have often given you pain—I know I have, my dear love; but somehow, this sorrow has made me think more seriously than I ever did before; and it does appear to me that this sort of life I am leading is a very idle and extravagant one, to say the least of it, and I will, I am determined, turn over a new leaf.”

"Ah, Charles!" and she looked at him with a smile, but with swimming eyes.

"You doubt me, Matilda and I admit you have some cause for your doubts; for you have often had occasion to remark the instability of my purposes. But I never thought so earnestly as I have done the last week or two. I have said I cannot go on thus -I must adopt some other plan of life;' but it was when I was bothered for money that I said so, not because I saw any thing unsatisfactory in the course I was pursuing, not because I felt that it was a wrong

one."

"But now you do feel it to be so ;" she inquired with joyful eagerness.

"Indeed I do," he replied with as much earnestness as possible.

"Then I am happy-oh, never can I regret the loss of my baby, very heavy as the disappointment was, if this sorrow has been the means of awakening your mind to reflection. My dear Charles," she continued, taking his hand, and looking at him with a countenance of the sweetest persuasion, "that I could but influence you to think of the things that belong to your peace! for you have not yet found them you say that you have not, and I know that you say true. They are not in dissipation, and a round of frivolous engagements; they are not in profuse expenditure; for of the thousands that we have spent since our marriage, how small is the sum that we have devoted to the necessaries-or to the comforts of life.

"We, Matilda !" he repeated, "say you, Charles. Do not unite your name with mine, in condemning the extravagance that has reigned here. You would

have done right-you would have persuaded-it is I only that deserve to be reproved."

"I would not exempt myself from censure," she replied, "for I have been too passive. I did not urge and re-urge my counsels. I was afraid of wearying you. I was ashamed to say all that I could and would fain have said to influence you. But I will shrink no more from my duty. It is my duty, as it is my fervent desire, to save, if I can, one so near and dear to me from destruction; for what but destruction can follow you, if, blind to every warn ing, you go on still in this thoughtless course? It is the want of thought, the want of reflection, which has so far misled you ; and your course has hitherto been too prosperous, too much uninterrupted by disappointment, to awaken consideration of any serious kind. Affliction has been sent-in mercy sent. Oh, my beloved Charles, nourish the thoughts it dictates; do not let them die away in empty words, but strive to cherish them into action."

"Believe me, Matilda, they shall not die away in words; I will cherish them into action."

Her pious heart trembled within her at this assurance so positively, but as she considered it, so heedlessly given. With the meekness of one nurtured in the fear of her maker, and assuming as the first grand principle of Christian belief, her utter incapacity of herself to do any thing that was right or pleasing to him, it sounded almost like impiety to assert, with the boldness of one confident of his own strength and ability, that an event of any kind should be accomplished, much less an event that, as she conceived it, required that change of heart and purpose, which