A noble sorrow cherished to the last,
When every meaner wo had long been past.
Yes, let affection weep, no common tear
She sheds when bending o'er an honored bier.
Let nature mourn the dead--a grief like this,
To pangs that rend _my_ bosom had been bliss.

MRS. HEMANS.

Florence had been very ill, and a week after the scene in our last
chapter Mr. Hurst removed her down to his old mansion-house on the
Long Island shore. There the associations were less painful than at
his town residence, where the sweetest years of her life had been
spent in unrestrained association with the man who had so cruelly
deceived her. The old mansion-house had witnessed only one fatal scene
in the drama of her love; and here she consented to remain. Her father
divided his time between her and the unpleasant duties that called him
to town; and more than once he was forced to endure the presence of
the man whose very look was poison to him, but after the distressing
night when the error of his daughter was first made known, the noble
old merchant had regained all his usual dignified calmness. No bursts
of passion marked his interviews with the wretch who had wounded him,
but firm and resolute he proceeded, step by step, in the course that
his reason and will had at first deliberately marked out. In three
days time Jameson was to depart for Europe, and forever. It was
singular what power the merchant had obtained over his own strong
passions; always grave and courteous, his demeanor had changed in
nothing, save that toward his child there was more delicacy, more
tender solicitude than she had ever received from him before, even in
the days of her infancy. It seemed that in forgiving her fault, he had
unlocked some hidden fount of tenderness which bedewed and softened
his whole nature. Florence, who had always felt a little awe of her
father when no act of hers existed to excite it, now that she had
given him deep cause of offence, had learned to watch for his coming
as the young bird waits for the parent which is to bring him food. One
night, it was just before sunset, Mr. Hurst entered his daughter's
chamber with a handful of heliotrope, tea-roses, and cape-jesamines,
which he had just gathered. In his tender anxiety to relieve the
sadness that preyed upon her, he remembered her passion for these
particular flowers, and had spent half an hour in searching them out
from the wildernes