By that time, perhaps, the grace of God will have quelled the storms within me, and I may then hear from your lips the blessed words of absolution.'

The following history was contained in the manuscript which Mr. Lacy carried home with him.

CHAPTER I.

'What thousand voices pass through all the rooms,
What cries and hurries!

My cousin's death sits heavy on my conscience; hark!

I was born and educated in the house of my uncle, Mr. Middleton, one of the wealthiest squires in D-shire. He had received my mother with kindness and affection on her return from India, where she had lost her husband and her eldest child. She was his youngest and favourite sister, and when, after having given birth to a daughter, she rapidly declined in health, and soon after expired, bequeathing that helpless infant to his protection, he silently resolved to treat it as his own, and, like most resolutions formed in silence, it was religiously adhered to. At the time of my birth my uncle was about forty years old—a country gentleman in the most respectable sense of the word.

Devoted to the improvement of his tenants on the one hand, and to that of his estate on the other,-zealous as a magistrate, active as a farmer, charitable towards the poor, and hospitable towards the rich, he was deservedly popular with his neighbours, and much looked up to in his county. He had been attached in his youth to the daughter of a clergyman of eminent abilities and high character, who

resided in the neighbourhood of Elmsley. For six years his father had opposed his intended marriage with Miss Selby, and when at the end of that time he extorted from him a reluctant consent, it was too late to press his suit; she was dying of a hopeless decline; and to cheer her few remaining days of life by every token of the most devoted affection, and after her death to mourn deeply and silently over the wreck of his early hopes, was the conclusion of an attachment to which Mr. Middleton had looked as to the source and means of all his future happiness. At the age of thirty-five he became possessed, by his father's death, of the manor-house of Elmsley, and of the large property adjoining to it. In the happiness which his wealth gave him the means of diffusing around him, in the friendly attachment with which he was regarded by those among whom he now fixed his residence, he found subjects of interest and sources of gratification which gradually obliterated the traces of his early affliction.

From what I have already said it will be plainly perceived that my uncle was a man that one could not fail to esteem; though whether or not it was as easy to love him may be questioned. To the strictest principles of religious morality he added a heart full of kind feeling for others, and an invariable serenity of temper; but an unconquerable reserve, a want of confidence in others, and an absence of sympathy in their tastes and pursuits, interfered with the expression, if not with the existence, of those affections which his merits and his kindness would otherwise have been so well calculated to inspire. I never remember his taking the slightest interest in any of my childish pleasures, or his uttering any but the most formal phrase of commendation when my performances were submitted to his inspection. Young as I was, I felt this want of sympathy in the only person who was really interested in my welfare, and would

have gladly agreed to be less calmly reproved when I was wrong and more warmly praised when I was right.

Till the age of six years old I am not conscious of having loved any human being. From accidental circumstances my nurses had been so often changed that I had not had the opportunity of attaching myself to any of them; and as to my uncle, I believe he might have left Elmsley for days, weeks, or months, without causing me the slightest sensation of regret or solitude. He did not often absent himself from home, but on one occasion he did so for three months, and a few days before his return my nurse informed me that he was married, and that I should soon see my new aunt. The announcement caused me neither pleasure nor pain, and curiosity was the only feeling with which I anticipated the arrival so eagerly looked forward to by the whole of my uncle's establishment. When Mrs. Middleton arrived I was immediately summoned into the drawing-room. The tenderness of her manner, the expressions of fondness with which she greeted me, the emotion which her countenance betrayed, were all so totally different from anything that I had ever witnessed, that I felt as if a being from another world had come among us. There was something heavenly in the expression of her countenance-there was something original in every word she uttered; in her gaiety there was a bubbling joyousness an intense enjoyment in enjoyment-that was irresistibly attractive, and in sorrow or in emotion her tears fell unconsciously from her eyes, and would trickle down her cheeks without any of the disfiguring grimaces which usually attend the act of weeping. I loved her from the first instant I saw her, and my childish heart clung to her with all the strength of feeling that had lain dormant in it during the first years of my existence. To use a familiar expression, we took to each other instantaneously; I do not know that she was fond of children, as it is called; she did not stop to

caress those we met in our walks, and of romping and noise she grew very soon weary; but there was so much originality in her understanding, and so much simplicity in her character-she was so in earnest about every employment and amusement which she admitted me to share,-that, superior as she was, I never felt that she was making an effort to bring herself down to my level, and consequently in her society never experienced the weariness which children are apt to feel from those flat and unprofitable attempts to amuse them which are so often made and so often fail. She required sympathy; it was as necessary to her as the air of heaven, and what she so much needed herself she amply yielded to others. I never met in my life with any one who entered into the feelings of those about her as she did.

Altogether she was a person more calculated to diffuse happiness than to enjoy it; perhaps to inspire more enthusiastic feelings of affection than she herself often experienced. Be that as it may, she opened a new era in the history of my childhood; and, during the six or seven years that followed the epoch of my uncle's marriage, my life was as happy as that of a human creature can be. About a year after that event Mrs. Middleton was confined of a girl, and this circumstance, far from diminishing my happiness, served but to increase it. My aunt was not a person capable of being engrossed by an infant, and, though greatly pleased at the birth of her little girl, her affection for me suffered no diminution. The cares which little Julia required—the task of entertaining her, which often fell to my share-formed a delightful amusement; and I do not remember, till the time when she was eight and I fifteen, having ever felt, or, indeed, having had cause to feel, one jealous pang on her account.

Mrs. Middleton took great pains with my education, at least with those parts of it which were congenial to her taste