a blessing and a welcome over every repast. But our natures seize with avidity the healing balm which time and occupation offer: much variety of disposition was, however, manifested in the manner in which each one of the family sought the consolation they needed.

Mrs. Mowbray became evidently, though perhaps unconsciously, better both in health and spirits from the time that her neighbours, according to their different ranks, resumed their visits of friendship, civility, and respect. She had testified outwardly, excepting to such an eye as Rosalind's, more intense suffering than any other member of the family. Nor was this in the smallest degree the result of affectation: she felt all, and more than all, that she had ever expressed, and would gladly, for the sake of her poor children, have concealed a part of it, had the fibre of her character permitted her doing so. But she was demonstrative by nature: with great softness and sweetness of temper, was joined that species of weakness which is often said to be the most attractive feature in the female character;—a weakness that induced her to seize gladly and gratefully any hand extended to lead her, and which, while it made her distrust herself, gave most sovereign sway and masterdom to any one ready and willing to supply the strength and decision of purpose which she wanted.

Many female philippics have been penned, I believe, against that manly passion for superiority which leads our masters to covet in a companion chosen for life the temper of mind here described; but I am tempted to think that this longing to possess a being that wants protection, far from demonstrating a disposition prone to tyranny, shows a nature disposed to love and to cherish, in a manner perfectly accordant to the most perfect beau idéal of married life. But, on the other hand, there may perhaps be more of fondness than judgment in those who make such mallability of mind their first requisite in a choice so awfully important.

Mrs. Mowbray, however, had a thousand good qualities to justify the devoted affection of her husband. Generous, unsuspicious, and confiding, she was almost as incapable of doubting the goodness of others, as of deserving such doubts herself. Though heiress to immense property, no feeling in the slightest degree approaching to pride had even for a single instant swelled her heart; and though good, beautiful, and accomplished, her estimate of herself was lower than that formed of her by any other human being. Her heart was now more than ever opened to every expression of sympathy and kindness, and she experienced the most salutary effects from