next day.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII.

Miss Clare, we may be sure, made her brother very happy, when she
told him of the engagement she had made for the morrow, and how
delighted she had been with his handsome friend.

Allan, I believe, got little sleep that night. I know not, whether
joy be not a more troublesome bedfellow than grief--hope keeps a body
very wakeful, I know.

Elinor Clare was the best good creature--the least selfish human
being I ever knew--always at work for other people's good, planning
other people's happiness--continually forgetful to consult for her
own personal gratifications, except indirectly, in the welfare of
another; while her parents lived, the most attentive of
daughters--since they died, the kindest of sisters--I never knew but
_one_ like her. It happens that I have some of this young lady's
_letters_ in my possession--I shall present my reader with one of
them. It was written a short time after the death of her mother, and
addressed to a cousin, a dear friend of Elinor's, who was then on the
point of being married to Mr. Beaumont, of Staffordshire, and had
invited Elinor to assist at her nuptials. I will transcribe it with
minute fidelity.

ELINOR CLARE TO MARIA LESLIE.

Widford, July the --, 17--.

Health, Innocence, and Beauty, shall be thy bride-maids, my sweet
cousin. I have no heart to undertake the office. Alas! what have I to
do in the house of feasting?

Maria! I fear lest my griefs should prove obtrusive. Yet bear with me
a little--I have recovered already a share of my former spirits.

I fear more for Allan than myself. The loss of two such parents,
within so short an interval, bears very heavy on him. The boy _hangs_
about me from morning till night. He is perpetually forcing a smile
into his poor pale cheeks--you know the sweetness of his smile,
Maria.

To-day, after dinner, when he took his glass of wine in his hand, he
burst into tears, and would not, or could not then, tell me the
reason--afterwards he told me--"he had been used to drink Mamma's
health after dinner, and _that_ came into his head and made him cry."
I feel the claims the boy has upon me--I perceive that I am living to
_some end_--and the thought supports me.

Already I have attained to a state of complacent feelings--my
mother's lessons were not thrown away upon her Elinor.

In the visions of last night her spirit seemed to stand at my
bedside--a light,