enabled this more than mother to part from her adopted child with a
resignation which no earthly motive could have imparted to her mind. It
seems almost profanation to mingle with her elevated feelings the coarse
yet simple sorrows of the aunts, old and young, as they clung around the
nearly lifeless Mary, each tendering the parting gift they had kept as a
solace for the last.

Poor Miss Grizzy was more than usually incoherent as she displayed "a
nice new umbrella that could be turned into a nice walking-stick, or
anything;" and a dressing-box, with a little of everything in it; and,
with a fresh burst of tears, Mary was directed where she would _not_
find eye-ointment, and where she was _not_ to look for
sticking-plaister.

Miss Jacky was more composed as she presented a flaming copy of
Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, with a few suitable observations; but
Miss Nicky could scarcely find voice to tell that the _housewife_ she
now tendered had once been Lady Girnchgowl's, and that it contained
Whitechapel needles of every size and number. The younger ladies had
clubbed for the purchase of a large locket, in which was enshrined a lock
from each subscriber, tastefully arranged by the----- jeweller, in the
form of a wheat sheaf upon a blue ground. Even old Donald had his
offering, and, as he stood tottering at the chaise door, he contrived to
get a "bit snishin mull" laid on Mary's lap, with a "God bless her bonny
face, an'may she ne'er want a good sneesh!"

The carriage drove off, and for a while Mary's eyes were closed in
despair.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"Farewell to the mountains, high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths, and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests, and wild hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents, and loud roaring floods!"

_Scotch Song._

HAPPILY in the moral world as in the material one the warring elements
have their prescribed bounds, and "the flood of grief decreaseth when it
can swell no higher;" but it is only by retrospection we can bring
ourselves to believe in this obvious truth. The young and untried heart
hugs itself in the bitterness of its emotions, and takes a pride in
believing that its anguish can end but with its existence; and it is not
till time hath almost steeped our senses in forgetfulness that we
discover the mutability of all human passions.

But Mary left it not to the slow hand of time to subdue in some measure
the grief that s