as those to the neighbouring
poor, were, if possible, more actively and perseveringly performed than
they had even been before. Not one of her former favourite employments
was thrown aside. The complete unselfishness of her nature was more
clearly visible than ever, and was it strange that she became dearer
than ever to those with whom she lived? Her parents felt she was twining
herself more and more around their hearts, and beheld, with
inexpressible anguish, that though her young mind was so strong, her
fragile frame was too weak to support the constant struggle. She never
complained; there was no outward failing of health, but there was a
nameless something hovering round her, which even her doting parents
could not define, but which they felt too forcibly to shake off; and
notwithstanding every effort to expel the idea, that nameless something
brought with it alarm--alarm defined indeed too clearly; but of which
even to each other they could not speak.

Time passed, and Herbert Hamilton, as the period of his ordination was
rapidly approaching, lost many of those painfully foreboding feelings
which for the last three years had so constantly and painfully assailed
him. He felt stronger in health than he had ever remembered to have
done, and the spirit of cheerfulness, and hope, and joy breathing in the
letters of his Mary affected him with the same unalloyed feelings of
anticipated happiness; sensations of holiness, of chastened thanksgiving
pervaded his every thought, the inward struggle appeared passed. There
was a calm upon his young spirit, so soothing and so blessed, that the
future rose before him unsullied by a cloud; anticipation was so bright,
it seemed a foretaste of that glorious heaven, the goal to which he and
his Mary looked--the home they sought together.

Percy had also obtained honourable distinction at Oxford; his active
spirit would not have permitted him to remain quiet in college so long,
had he not determined to see his brother ordained ere he commenced the
grand tour, to which he looked with much zest, as the completion to his
education, and render him, if he turned it to advantage, in all respects
fitted to serve his country nobly in her senate, the point to which he
had looked, from the first hour he was capable of thought, with an
ardour which increased as that long-desired time approached.

The disgraceful expulsion of Cecil Grahame from Cambridge opened afresh
that wound in his father's h