her.

Mrs. Lennox was one of those gentle amiable beings, who engage our
affections far more powerfully than many possessed of higher attributes.
Her understanding was not strong--neither had it been highly cultivated,
according to the ideas of the present time; but she had a benevolence of
heart and a guileless simplicity of thought that shamed the pride of wit
and pomp of learning. Bereft of all external enjoyments, and destitute
of great mental resources, it was retrospection and futurity that gilded
the dark evening of her days, and shed their light on the dreary
realities of life. She loved to recall the remembrance of her
children--to tell of their infant beauties, their growing virtues--and
to retrace scenes of past felicity which memory loves to treasure in the
heart.

"Oh! none but a mother can tell," she would exclaim, "the bitterness of
those tears which fall from a mother's eyes. All other sorrows seem
natural, but--God forgive me!--surely it is not natural that the old
should weep for the young. Oh! when I saw myself surrounded by my
children, little did I think that death was so soon to seal their eyes!
Sorrow mine! and yet me thinks I would rather have suffered all than
have stood in the world a lonely being. Yes, my children revered His
power and believed in His name, and, thanks to His mercy, I feel assured
they are now angels in heaven! Here," taking some papers from a
writing-box, "my Louisa speaks to me even from the tomb! These are the
words she wrote but a few hours before her death. Read them to me; for
it is not every voice I can bear to hear uttering her last thoughts."
Mary read as follows:--

FOR EVER GONE.

For ever gone! oh, chilling sound!
That tolls the knell of hope and joy!
Potent with torturing pang to wound,
But not in mercy to destroy.

For ever gone! what words of grief--
Replete with wild mysterious woe!
The Christian kneels to seek relief--
A Saviour died---It is not so.

For a brief space we sojourn here,
And life's rough path we journey o'er;
Thus was it with the friend so dear,
That is not lost, but sped before.

For ever gone! oh, madness wild
Dwells in that drear and Atheist doom!
But death of horror is despoiled,
When Heaven shines forth beyond the tomb.

For ever gone! oh, dreadful fate!
Go visit nature--gather thence
The symbols of man's happier state,
Which speak to every