rspective of the future seems
clothed in every attractive hue, and the objects of this world assume a
grace divine: then it is that happiness, borne on the wings of innocence
and light-hearted mirth, attends our every step, and seems to wait
obedient to our will.

What a painful reverse may not the retrospective view afford! how unlike
is the finished picture to the inspiring sketch. The one breathing the
soft air of nature, and sparkling in brilliant tints of variegated
hues, serene, clear, and transparent, like the magic pencilling of
the heavenly Claude, shedding ambrosial sweets around. The reverse
indistinct, and overpowered with gloomy shadows, a mixture of the
terrific and the marvellous, like the stormy and convulsive scenes
of the mighty genius of Salvator Rosa, with here and there a flash of
wildest eccentricity, that only serves to render more visible the murky
deformity of the whole.

Horatio had just finished his introductory rhapsody, when the door
opened, and my aunt's servant entered with tea and toast: the simmering
of the water round the heated tube of the urn, tingling in the ears of
Heartly, broke the thread of his narration. There was a pause of nearly
a minute, while John was busy in arranging the equipage. "You should
have waited till I had rung, John," said my aunt. "Please your
ladyship," said John, "you directed me always to bring tea in at six
precisely, without waiting for orders." My aunt looked puzzled: "You
are right, John, I did; and (addressing Horatio) the fault of the
interruption must therefore rest with me." Horatio bowed; the compliment
was too flattering to be
~24~~
misunderstood. "Draw the curtains, John," said my aunt, "and make up the
fire: we can help ourselves to what we want--you need not wait; and
do not interrupt us again until you are rung for." "This is very
mysterious," thought John, as he closed to the drawing-room door; and
he related what he thought to my lady's maid, when he returned to the
servants' hall. "You are, no conjurer, John," said Mrs. Margaret, with
an oblique inclination of the head, half amorous and half conceited--"the
old lady's will has been signed and sealed these three years; I was
present when it was made--ay, and I signed it too, and what's more, I
knows all its contents; there are some people in the world (viewing
herself in an opposite looking-glass) who may be very differently
circumstanced some day or other." John's heart had long felt a so