awhile; her prattle doth amuse me, thine is irksome, and doth fatigue me." Sister Barbara obeyed:-but what were the thoughts and surmises of the pious nun, as she went forthwith from the chamber of the holy lady, may very probably be guessed at. Sister Barbara was too wise to communicate her thoughts and surmises to any other person; but she quitted the chamber with involuntary horror, counting over her beads till her very fingers ached with the fervency of her devotion. But the child remained in the apartment of the holy lady for nearly two hours, and continued for that space of time, each successive day, to visit the holy lady, who, gradually recovering from her long and severe indisposition, perfectly doated on the lovely young noviciate committed to her charge. Meanwhile Agatha continued with years to expand in loveliness of person, as she improved in every mental grace and accomplishment, and no expense was spared in perfecting by art what nature had so beautifully adorned; she had strong intellect, great and powerful feeling, uncommon energy and quick and lively fancy, grateful and affectionate, mild but prompt in her actions, pure in her thoughts, and ingenuous in expressing them; indignant only when insulted or aggrieved; gentle in her rebuke, but firm and decided in her character, and all this perfection had gradually acquired habit and strength under the careful eye of her preceptress, the Lady Matilda St. Clare, Abbess of the Convent of the Holy Sisters; it was by her hand that this lovely flower was reared, and daily opened into sweetness and luxuriant beauty, but it was with the temperature of spring more than the glowing tints of summer that these beauties were cultivated, and with moderation by her skilful instructress, and when she inquired what the world was like, and what the creatures were who lived in it, Lady Matilda's reply was, "The less you know of it you will like it better; when you are old enough I will tell you what it is, and you will despise it but 1 cannot teach it you, my child! alas, it is only by experience that you must learn how fallacious are its promises, how deceptive are its smiles, how terrible are its frowns, and how visionary are its prospects of happiness; still, while virtuous, you may be borne down its stream and repel its force, however bitter: while you have fortitude it will be disarmed of half its terrors and its fears, as death is to the truly good and pious christians, who have done virtuously while they have lived here, and do not fear to die." "And yet death is terrible, dearest lady," cried the youthful noviciate; "I have heard, to die young is to die happy, but then it must be very young; for I am young, and yet methinks to die and leave you, lady————" the little trembler paused as she looked full in the mild blue eyes of Lady Matilda, but she saw displeasure marked there in characters too legible to be mistaken; it was an expression which seldom took possession of so celestial a countenance, and a tear trembled in the eye of the little noviciate, when her preceptress pronounced, "And does Agatha regard me more than him who made her ?— thy Father, thy Heavenly Father! Were you to die now, you would surely be transplanted to a happier state than frail, weak, perishable, suffering mortality; have I not told you that death only is terrible to the wicked? but as for human ties, lovely child, rest not your heart upon them, or they will break your spirit with the burden they must quickly dissolve, Agatha, but if you love your God, he will be ever near you when all human friends will fade away." The young noviciate fell upon the bosom of Lady Matilda and wept, and awhile she bore with the excess of sensibility which swelled to sobbing the bosom of the lovely girl; but this was the proper season to check it, and her preceptress chose it. "I do love my God," cried Agatha, "but, as I love my God, is it a fault to love you also? I could not leave you, lady, without shedding tears, even though I went to Him!" "My child, there is danger in this excess of sensibility," uttered the lady, "it will be fatal to you if thus indulged, you must acquire power to check it e'er it be too late; and you cannot hope to do this, but by imploring the assistance of Him who made you, and by the laudable exertion of that strong intellect he has so liberally gifted you with. I do not mean to say that you should possess no feeling, but temper it with submission, moderation, pru dence, and a perfect resignation to the will of your Heavenly Fa ther, by whose ordinance all worldly objects move in diurnal course, whether in prosperity or in adversity; this will be your guide, your monitor and friend, and by this firm and unshaken bias of well-founded principle, my Agatha will bear the evils (if she cannot escape them,) that may fall to her lot through this worldly pilgrimage of care, the bitter thorns of compunction, and the heartwounding reflection of self-reproach. Be independent of your own thoughts, Agatha! cling to the only source from which you will derive consolation in the adverse hour of danger, temptation and sorrow, and let the tempest spend its fury,-it may appal but it cannot crush you, while you bear an upright heart about you, and a firm reliance that you will be uplifted by that hand which goverus the whole of universal space, air, seas, winds :-all created objects must (for vain and impotent is their power) yield to Him; tyrants must fall,-empires be overthrown,-monarchs die,—if so he wills it; and every earthly creature bend submissive to his power. In the spring of opening life, while the blossom of youth yet scatters roses round your brow, review the picture I have drawn to help you, my child, with wisdom to discriminate the object there pourtrayed; if not in lively colours they are true ones; and the blessing of Matilda, of innocence, peace and virtue, be with you and remain with you for evermore." A silence of some moments prevailed, and the first look that the young noviciate regarded her preceptress with, produced a perfect conviction on the mind of the pious lady, that her solemn and affecting exhortations had succeeded, and converted her youthful pupil into all she wished her to be. It is no wonder then that, guided by such a preceptress, our heroine gradually acquired a habitude of manner and an energy of mind far beyond her youthful years, and that, when she quitted the Convent of the Holy Sisters, and was consigned to the care of her Father, (so perfect from the hands of Lady Matilda,) he beheld his lovely daughter with the most transported eyes, and regarded her as the choicest blessing that heaven could bestow; in his evening of life, one brilliant light illumined his cheerless hour, and embalmed the influence of gloomy reflection; and, like the dew that falls from roses, so he inhaled its precious fragrance,-it was the smile of his heavenborn child, his young and lovely Agatha. CHAPTER XXV. "Her cheeks blush deep with rosy streams, Tempers with grace the beauty of her mien." WITH a mind thus early formed, and a disposition thus tempered to reflection, by the precepts of so accomplished and able an instructress as the Abbess of the Convent of the Holy Sisters, (Lady Matilda St. Clare,) it is no wonder that our lovely heroine had acquired a philosophy to meet the after evils of her fate with heroic firmness and patient forbearance, (which older and more experienced females would have sunk under,) and which supported her in the most trying and eventful hour of her whole existence, the untimely death of her father; she had indeed yielded to the first excess of grief with involuntary bursts of anguish, which were uncontrolable, but on the second, her tears were forbid to flow from the effects of her education, and the holy and pious submission she had been taught to render to the will of heaven, and like the lily in the storm, she bended, but did not break, as she trembled beneath its pitiless beatings. To have imagined, therefore, that a mind and a heart so framed as those of Agatha Singleton, could be appalled at mere imaginary dangers which really had no serious grounds for apprehension or fear, would only have been doing her the greatest injustice; and it was not fear that agitated her throbbing bosom, when she wrung the hand of Jessy as she departed with her youthful protector from the gateway; but it was a sensation wholly new to her, as it was almost one of a heaven-born kind: it was the ecstatic, yet scarcely half-formed hope of meeting in the illustrious tenant of the Cliff, strange and however mysterious it might appear, Agatha fondly, anxiously hoped to behold-a mother: for never had her father told her that her mother was no longer in existence; but that they had been disunited from some powerful cause she had always conjectured, though she had never been told so by him, nor Lady Matilda, who, like her father, had always evaded any questions that might resolve her doubts on so mysterious a subject. Once indeed, when she had made of the holy Abbess her usual inquiries of,-" Is my mother dead?—and did she resemble you or me?—whom did she resemble, lady?" she received the following singular reply :— "Child, would you have me answer what I do not know?—you were but a tender suckling when you were brought into these cloisters, and consigned to my arms, by" The Abbess paused, and struggled to suppress a sigh, which did not escape the observation of the youthful inquirer, and yet more anxiously she exclaimed, "Ah! by whom, lady, was I consigned to your arms, I implore you to tell me?" And the Abbess somewhat sternly replied, "Your father: think you a mother could have parted with the little nursling from her fond breast, to yield it to another's care?— no, Agatha, think not of mothers so inhumanly: nature, holy nature, here claims pre-eminence over all other ties, over all other connexions; there is none so dear, so soft, so pure, so tender, so resistless as the babe to the mother who has given it birth. Cease, then, Agatha, to interrogate me further on this subject, to me the most painful, because it is unavailing ;-you will ask of Matilda but in vain aught of your mother;-yet the question is natural at your age,—in truth I cannot blame you." "Or at any age, is it not natural, dear lady?" again inquired the youthful pleader, and with tearful eyes, "If a babe is so dear to a mother, as you have just described, what must the mother be to the babe?" "I command you to desist," cried the Abbess, as if she had made an involuntary effort to subdue the weakness of her momentary feelings, and then resumed the firm tone of her character; |