CHAPTER XVI.

AFFAIRS AT ELM GROVE.-DEATH OF EMILY. -A MOTHER'S SORROW.

To meet the meek uplifted eye
That fain would ask relief,
Yet can but tell of agony-
This is a mother's grief.

Through dreary days and darker nights,
To trace the march of death,
To hear the faint and frequent sigh,

The quick and shorten'd breath;
To watch the last dread strife draw near,
And pray that struggle brief,
Though all is ended with its close-

This is a mother's grief.

REV. T. DALE.

FOR some months after Frank's departure

from Elm Grove, Mrs. Hartwell had struggled

against grief, and determined, for the sake of her daughter, who so much required all the care and tenderness she could bestow, to maintain that energy of character which could alone support her under such a trial as the absence of her only son. The hope, too, of hearing from him in a short time, was a strong consolation; and she looked forward to his first letter as one of the sweetest events she could anticipate. If it told that he was happy, it spoke all that a mother's heart could wish for, even in loneliness and separation; and if, on the contrary, it bore tidings of discontent and repentance, it would bring a promise of his speedy return. Long and anxiously did she wait for the period when she knew that a letter might arrive, and with many a heavy sigh would she exclaim that a month had never appeared to her so long a space of time before. Each morning as she roșe, and each evening as she retired to rest, Frank was her earliest and her latest thought; and often as she sat alone would she form fond

conjectures of where he then was, and what he was employed in. To Emily, his absence was a source of much more serious solicitude; her health was too precarious to endure the slightest shock, and when by day she spent one half her time in weeping and melancholy, and could not sleep by night for thinking of her brother, the agitation of her mind began to make a serious alteration in the appearance of her person; she lost her appetite and her spirits, she loved to be alone, and her pale, sallow cheek, told that her hours of seclusion were not spent in pleasure or enjoyment. Mrs. Hartwell's first letter had remained unanswered much longer than she had any right to expect, and she began to fear that Frank was ill. Emily was of the same opinion; and, after some days' melancholy and sadness, she was forced to take to her bed, and from that bed she was doomed never to rise. It was at this juncture that her mother had written her second letter to Frank, and the contents of it I have already mentioned. A double anxiety now

preyed on the distracted mind of Mrs. Hartwell; from morn till eve her thoughts were wandering from her dying child to her absent boy, and in either she saw little to hope for, and nothing to render her happy. At last, one evening the boy from the little post-house came running up with a parcel; it was a newspaper and a letter from Captain Hartwell; the one contained a circumstantial detail of the action of the Syren with the pirate ship, and the unsatisfactory intelligence, that a Lieutenant, one midshipman, and ten sailors, had fallen in the engagement, besides about fourteen who were severely wounded. Mr. Markham's name was afterwards particularised, but no clue was given to the afflicted widow to discover whether her truant son was the other individual who had perished. The letter mentioned that Captain Hartwell would instantly make every enquiry as to the name of the sufferer, and let her know without delay the result. She had never been accustomed to keep her affairs a secret

from Emily; in the present crisis, she needed all the consolation which her dutiful and affectionate child could bestow, and she therefore communicated to her at once the import of this new and unexpected intelligence. Its effect on the weak nerves of the poor girl was deadly,it was overwhelming; she was too much debilitated to reason well on any subject, or take a considerate view of the matter; and besides, despair is always the result of feebleness, whilst hope requires an exertion and an effort either to produce or to sustain it. Day after day elapsed, and still no tidings came, whilst doubt and sorrow were undermining the little remaining strength of Emily. At last one fatal evening the dreadful intelligence arrived, and another newspaper was put into Mrs. Hartwell's hand, in which she read the report of the total destruction of the Syren. It stated, that she and the Britannia had been sailing in company during a calm and sunshiny evening; that a squall had come on with al