e betwixt them was now at an
end; and, secure in mutual affection, nothing seemed to oppose itself to
their happiness.

Colonel Lennox's fortune was small; but such as it was,
it seemed sufficient for all the purposes of rational enjoyment. Both
were aware that wealth is a relative thing, and that the positively rich
are not those who have the largest possessions but those who have the
fewest vain or selfish desires to gratify. From these they were happily
exempt. Both possessed too many resources in their own minds to require
the stimulus of spending money to rouse them into enjoyment, or give
them additional importance in the eyes of the world; and, above all,
both were too thoroughly Christian in their principles to murmur at any
sacrifices or privations they might have to endure in the course of
their earthly pilgrimage.

But Lady Juliana's weak, worldly mind, saw things in a very different
light; and when Colonel Lennox, as a matter of form, applied to her for
her consent to their union, he received a positive and angry refusal.
She declared she never would consent to any daughter of hers making so
foolish, so very unsuitable a marriage. And then, sending for Mary, she
charged her, in the most peremptory manner, to break of all intercourse
with Colonel Lennox.

Poor Mary was overwhelmed with grief and amazement at this new display
of her mother's tyranny and injustice, and used all the powers of
reasoning and entreaty to alter her sentiments; but in vain. Since
Adelaide's elopement Lady Juliana had been much in want of some subject
to occupy her mind--something to excite a sensation, and give her
something to complain of, and talk about, and put her in a bustle, and
make her angry, and alarmed, and ill-used, and, in short, all the things
which a fool is fond of being.

Although Mary had little hopes of being able to prevail by any
efforts of reason, she yet tried to make her mother comprehend the
nature of her engagement with Colonel Lennox as of a sacred nature, and
too binding ever to be dissolved. But Lady Juliana's wrath blazed forth
with redoubled violence at the very mention of an engagement. She had
never heard of anything so improper. Colonel Lennox must be a most
unprincipled man to lead her daughter into an engagement unsanctioned by
her; and she had acted in the most improper manner in allowing herself
to form an attachment without the consent of those who had the best
title to dispose of her. The p