ef so
passionate, so heartrending, as to draw bitter tears from my eyes. I
said what little I could to calm her--to have sought to do more would
have been a mockery; and observing that the darkness had closed in,
I took my leave and departed, being favoured with the services of my
former guide.

I expected to have been soon called upon again to visit the poor
girl; but the Lodge lay beyond the boundary of my parish, and I felt a
reluctance to trespass upon the precincts of my brother minister, and a
certain degree of hesitation in intruding upon one whose situation was
so very peculiar, and who would, I had no doubt, feel no scruple in
requesting my attendance if she desired it.

A month, however, passed away, and I did not hear anything of Ellen. I
called at the Lodge, and to my inquiries they answered that she was very
much worse in health, and that since the death of the child she had been
sinking fast, and so weak that she had been chiefly confined to her bed.
I sent frequently to inquire, and often called myself, and all that I
heard convinced me that she was rapidly sinking into the grave.

Late one night I was summoned from my rest, by a visit from the person
who had upon the former occasion acted as my guide; he had come to
summon me to the death-bed of her whom I had then attended. With
all celerity I made my preparations, and, not without considerable
difficulty and some danger, we made a rapid night-ride to the Lodge, a
distance of five miles at least. We arrived safely, and in a very short
time--but too late.

I stood by the bed upon which lay the once beautiful form of Ellen
Heathcote. The brief but sorrowful trial was past--the desolate mourner
was gone to that land where the pangs of grief, the tumults of passion,
regrets and cold neglect, are felt no more. I leant over the lifeless
face, and scanned the beautiful features which, living, had wrought such
magic on all that looked upon them. They were, indeed, much wasted; but
it was impossible for the fingers of death or of decay altogether
to obliterate the traces of that exquisite beauty which had so
distinguished her. As I gazed on this most sad and striking spectacle,
remembrances thronged fast upon my mind, and tear after tear fell upon
the cold form that slept tranquilly and for ever.

A few days afterwards I was told that a funeral had left the Lodge
at the dead of night, and had been conducted with the most scrupulous
secrecy. It was, of cour