welled her heart. Had she given way to selfishness, she
would have sought the free indulgence of her sorrow as the only
mitigation of it; but she felt also for her uncle. He was depressed at
parting with his wife and child, and he was taking a long and dreary
journey entirely upon her account. Could she therefore be so selfish as
to add to his uneasiness by a display of her sufferings? No--she would
strive to conceal it from his observation, though to overcome it was
impossible. Her feelings must ever remain the same, but, she would
confine them to her own breast; and she began to converse with and even
strove to amuse, her kindhearted companion. Ever and anon indeed a rush
of tender recollections came across her mind, and the soft voice and the
bland countenance of her maternal friend seemed for a moment present to
her senses; and then the dreariness and desolation that succeeded as the
delusion vanished, and all was stillness and vacuity! Even self-reproach
shot its piercing sting into her ingenuous heart; levities on which, in
her usual gaiety of spirit, she had never bestowed a thought, now
appeared to her as crimes of the deepest dye. She thought how often she
had slighted the counsels and neglected the wishes of her gentle
monitress; how she had wearied of her good old aunts, their cracked
voices, and the everlasting _tic-a-tic_ of their knitting needles; how
coarse and vulgar she had sometimes deemed the younger ones; how she had
mimicked Lady Maclaughlan, and caricatured Sir Sampson, and "even poor
dear old Donald," said she, as she summed up the catalogue of her
crimes, "could not escape my insolence and ill-nature. How clever I
thought it to sing 'Haud awa frae me, Donald,' and how affectedly I
shuddered at everything he touched;" and the "sneeshin mull" was bedewed
with tears of affectionate contrition. But every painful sentiment was
for a while suspended in admiration of the magnificent scenery that was
spread around them. Though summer had fled, and few even of autumn's
graces remained, yet over the august features of mountain scenery the
seasons have little control. Their charms depend not upon richness of
verdure, or luxuriance of foliage, or any of the mere prettinesses of
nature; but whether wrapped in snow, or veiled in mist, or glowing in
sunshine, their lonely grandeur remains the same; and the same feelings
fill and elevate the soul in contemplating these mighty works of an
Almighty hand. The eye is