though happiness may be denied me here, let me never despair of it hereafter....Nor will I despair of it here," he added, after a pause; " for to despair, is to doubt the goodness of that Being who has promised to befriend those that put their trust in him. As the sun will again look forth, in all his beauty, upon these now streaming fields; as the clouds which veil the heavens will be dispersed, so will I hope for the restoration of prosperity, and the dispersion of the clouds that now obscure my horizon."

He cast another lingering look at old Glengary (as he styled the castle,) and rode on. While he pursues his journey, we shall take a retrospective view of his life..

Captain Robert Munro was the only child of a Scotch gentlemen of considerable property, and who bestowed on him an education suitable to his prospects. Disliking a life of idleness for him, in consequence of the dissipation he had known such to occasion, he intended him for one of the learned professions: this intention proved by no means agreeable to the young gentleman; he possessed an ardent temper, an enthusiastic imagination, had heard, like Douglas, of battles, and longed to follow to the field some warlike lord....in short, he was too much fired, by what he had heard of the deeds of heroes, not to resolve on seeking, like them, to immortalize himself in the fields of the valiant. His father warmly opposed this resolution; but, although his mother dreaded the dangers attached to a military life, the constant and animated pleadings of this her adored son, by degrees obtained her acquiescence to his wishes; she became his advocate, and soon prevailed on his father to purchase a commission for him in a marching regiment, which, shortly after he had entered, was ordered on foreign service. During the period of his continuance abroad, young Munro visited various climates, and had ample experience of the dangers incidental to his profession, but which neither damped his spirit, nor for an instant caused him to regret the one he had chosen. This, however, was by no means the case with his parents; they never ceased lamenting it, more especially when intelligence reached them of his having been dreadfully

wounded in an engagement in one of the West India islands; intelligence which was speedily followed by his return to his native kingdom, owing to the advice of his physicians, who, without such a measure, protested his recovery was every thing but impossible.

His mother made use of the opportunity his return afforded, to endeavour to prevail on him to quit the army, but, though naturally of a yielding disposition, without avail, since he was now not only more attached than ever to his profession, but conceived his leaving it at this crisis would be to compromise his honour, as he doubted not his doing so would be imputed to the danger he had been in. Finding him inexorable, she prevailed on his father to purchase him a troop in a regiment of dragoons, in consequence of being informed, by some military friends, the cavalry was not so liable to be ordered abroad as the infantry. Of what she had done he received no intimation, until his promotion appeared in the gazette. The young captain would infinitely have preferred continuing in his old regiment, as in it he fancied he should have had a quicker opportunity of reaping the laurels he was so ambitious of obtaining.... that he would have done so, however, neither his filial duty or grateful nature, would permit his acknowledging to his idolizing mother.

The monotonous life to which he found himself doomed on joining his new regiment, quartered in a country town in England, by no means accorded with his active spirit. He derived, however, one advantage from it.... that of being able to renew the studies which the pressure of his professional duties, while abroad, had obliged him to suspend; but he was not allowed to pursue them without interruption....there were in this corps, as there are in many others, several idle dissipated characters, disinclined to good themselves, and equally so to let others. These beset Munro, and, by degrees, drew him into the pernicious practice of gaming, in which he was too great a novice not to let them reap all the advantages they wished for. In consequence his drafts upon his father became so frequent, and so considerable, that a serious investigation into the cause of them at length took place.

Munro shrunk not from it; he candidly answered the enquiries addressed to him, was admonished by his mother of the enormity of the vice he had been led into, solemnly abjured it, and was forgiven, at least by her. The mind however, which has been for any period dissipated, cannot immediately revert to rational pursuits....like the sea after a storm, it requires some time to subside into calmness: Munro more eagerly, therefore, than ever, though always from a lively and social temper so inclined, entered into company. Amongst the families in the neighbourhood in which he was quartered, who paid particular attention to him and his brother officers, was that of a respectable merchant, who, after making a handsome fortune in Cadiz, had returned to spend the fruits of his industry in his native country. As he was quitting Spain there was committed to his care a young Spanish lady, for the purpose of having her educated in England. Her education was completed just as Munro became acquainted with her, and she only delayed returning to her native country till she had acquired that perfect knowledge of the manners and customs of the people she had been brought up amongst, which while at school, it was impossible for her to do. Nothing could be more attractive, more engaging than she was; but in place of giving a description of her, we will give the animated one the Chevalier de Bourgoanne has given of her countrywomen in general, as one she perfectly accorded with.

"Nothing," says he," is more engaging than a young female Spaniard at fifteen years of age....a face perfectly oval; hair of a fine clear auburn, equally divided on the forehead, and only bound by a silk net; large black eyes; a mouth full of graces; an attitude always modest; a simple habit of neat black serge, exactly fitting the body, and gently pressing the wrist; a little hand, perfectly proportioned; in fine, every thing charms in these youthful virgins they recal to our recollection the softness, beauty, dress, and simplicity of the young Grecian females, of whom antiquity has left such elegant models....the angels in Spanish comedy are always represented by young girls." The heart of our young soldier was susceptible, in the extreme, of the power of beauty, particularly when com

bined, as was the case in the present instance, with elegance, modesty, and intelligence; in short, he soon became the captive of the fair foreigner, nor did she seem insensible to his merits; but, enamoured as he was, he did not seek to inspire her with a reciprocal passion. There were obstacles, he feared, in the way of their union, which would prove insurmountable; honour, therefore forbade his endeavouring to create too lively an interest for himself in her heart....These obstacles were the nationality and bigotry of his father: he determined, however, not to despair altogether of overcoming them, till he had applied to his mother on the subject. Just as he had made up his mind to do this, an express arrived to inform him she was given over : he instantly set off for Scotland, but, notwithstanding his travelling without intermission, he only reached home time enough to assist in paying the last sad duties to her remains. Her death overwhelmed him with the most poignant grief; in losing her he lost not only the tenderest of parents, but the most faithful of friends, one to whom upon all occasions he could safely open his heart, with confidence of receiving both advice and consolation, did he stand in need of either. But it was not simply grief it excited, it also occasioned repentance, for he now began to think, that the anxiety she suffered, in consequence of his remaining in the army, had shortened her days; and, from the horror he felt at the idea, he would have given worlds, had they been in his power, to have recalled the period in which he had the power of ceding his wishes to her's. But, alas! time will not return, neither will the grave give up its dead; how scrupulous, therefore, should we be in our conduct to our relatives and friends, since, terrible to the heart of feeling is the remorse it experiences for errors not to be repaired.

"The woods, the wilds, the melancholy glooms" by which his paternal home was surrounded, too well suited his feelings at this juncture, not to make him wish to continue there some time; but, even if this had not been the case, he would still have felt this wish on account of his father, to whom, at this period, he conceived his society. absolutely indispensible; he soon, however, found that he

was mistaken in thinking so....that his father had felt but a transient regret, if any, for his mother's loss, and that, for the estimation in which he had been so long held in the neighbourhood, he was solely indebted to her. Mr. Munro was indeed the very reverse of what his amiable lady had made him appear. The defects in his disposition were not known to her till they were married; but though her uniting her fate with his was in obedience to the wishes of her father, not her own, she as scrupulously concealed them as if he had been her own immediate choice, and she had consequently dreaded their discovery occasioning her judgment to be called in question. She did more than conceal, she tried to remove them, but to no purpose....as he clearly demonstrated, by marrying, a very few weeks after her death, a woman formerly in her service, but whom he had seduced from it, and from that period till the one he made her his wife, kept in an obscure house in the vicinity of the castle.

This event, of which he had neither warning nor suspicion, till it took place, excited feelings in the pure and noble mind of Munro, easier to be conceived than described. It was not, however, so much on account of the ruin in which it threatened to involve his prospects (for he was entirely dependant on his father,) and that he could easily be warped from paying attention to the claims of nature, he had given too striking a proof to permit a doubt to be entertained on the subject, as on account of the disrespect it evinced to the memory of his mother, that he mourned and resented it. That, ere the tomb was well closed upon her, her place should be filled up, by such a woman too....so vile! so abject! so despicable! so every way unworthy of being her successor, filled him with indignation too great for suppression; in the first paroxysm of which, though his leave of absence was not expired, he fled precipitately from the house, with almost a determination never to enter it again.

Dejected and unhappy, he rejoined his regiment; but in place of seeking, as he had heretofore done, he now sedulously shunned society, particularly that of the family in which the lovely Spaniard resided; for since all hope of being united to her was at an end, now that he had lost