igh down my spirits--a dark
remembrance would ever stand between me and the sunny skies--a
tone, as of the dying and the dead, would ever mingle with the
sounds of melody, with the voice of love, with the words of
affection. Yes--

"All bright hopes and hues of day
Had faded into twilight grey;"

or rather into the darkness of night. I wept over myself, over
my blighted youth, my destroyed happiness, my lost
innocence--and I was only sixteen!

There I sat, that long night through; my aunt had sunk into
the heavy slumber of exhaustion, her hand in mine, her head on
my shoulder. I dared not move--scarcely breathe; hot searing
tears were slowly chasing each other down my cheeks, and the
storm within was raging wildly in my breast--but I did not
pray; I could not: a sheet of lead seemed to stretch itself
between me and Heaven; and when the light of day broke slowly
into the chamber of mourning, I closed my eyes, not to see the
sun in its calm majesty, dawning on the first day of changed
existence.

The first days that follow a great and sudden misfortune carry
with them a kind of excitement that keeps off for a time the
stunning sense of desolation from the soul. My uncle returned
on the following morning, bearing with him the body of his
child, which he had at length succeeded in rescuing from the
bed of the torrent, which had carried it down far below
Elmsley.

The preparations for the interment in the village church
seemed to rouse the afflicted parents to exertions, that,
though intimately connected with the loss that had befallen
them, were almost a relief to Mrs. Middleton, after the
inactivity of the last twenty-four hours.

I had hardly left her room all day, and when she told me that
my uncle expected us all to meet him at dinner, I felt it
would be impossible to go through the trial; but, as she was
going to make the exertion, I could not refuse to follow her.

When we entered the drawing-room together, Edward Middleton
and Henry Lovell were both standing before the fire-place. It
was well for me that our meeting took place while the
catastrophe of the day before was so recent, that the
agitation I betrayed could pass under the garb of sorrow and
nervousness. I was trembling violently; I felt a degree of
conviction, that amounted to moral certainty, that one of
those two men had witnessed the frightful scene, which
resembled more a hideous dream than an actual reality. Both
were coming to me w