which place she had last visited with her sister, Lady Everingham, and from thence repaired to that fête which had proved no unimportant incident in her life.

VOL. I.

F

CHAPTER V.

Then came the yearning of the exile's breast,
The haunting sound of voices far away,

And household steps.

HEMANS.

SILVERTON was a fine estate, and though the country in which it was situated was tame and unlovely in comparison with that to which she had been for so long accustomed, yet Mary Seaham was not so inveterate a mountaineer that she could look, as I know many do, upon the different aspect of the mother country, with the eye of utter aversion and distaste, and though she could not perhaps have gone so far as to agree with old Evelyn when he,

asserts Salisbury plain to be in his opinion, the part of Great Britain most worthy of admiration, yet for the gaze to be able to stretch unbounded over a level tract of cultivated land after having been long imprisoned within the massive confines of a mountainous district, she was not ashamed to own, there may be a certain degree of pleasurable relief.

But as may be supposed, any very critical survey of surrounding objects was at an end, when with that degree of nervousness ever more or less attending an arrival of this kind, she drew near the place of her destination in the carriage which had been sent to meet her. There was no one to receive her at the door when she alighted, but the servants, and its being near the dinner-hour, Mary concluded her cousins to have retired to their dressing-rooms. On making inquiries, however, to that effect she was informed that Mrs. de Burgh had not yet returned from her drive, and Mr. de Burgh was also from home.

Mary therefore accepted the offer of the civil domestic to be shown to the room prepared for her, and retired thither, not sorry to be able to rest awhile, after the fatigues of her long journey before a meeting with her relatives. Perhaps her spirits might be a little damped by the reception, or rather non-reception she had met with.

There is so much importance attached to a warm welcome, by those not well initiated in the careless frigidities of general society, that the very sensitive and inexperienced are often more chilled by any such accidental or habitual infringements on this score, than the occasion really requires.

We grow wiser or harder as we pass farther through the world, and learn to look upon it no longer as one large home of loving hearts, such as some may have accounted it; but a stage on which every man is too intent to play his own individual part, to have much respect for these minor charities of social life-the

word, the look of kindness, of affection which to the sensitive and unworldly spirit are often of higher price-contribute more to make up the sum of mortal happiness, than the most generous deed, or striking act of beneficence. We grow as we have before said, wiser or more callous, as we pass on through this world of our's-learn to see upon what principle society is founded, and cease to shrink chilled, and wounded, before each touch which falls coldly upon the warm surface of our too exigente heart-each unsympathetic glance which meets our wistful gaze.

Mary Seaham sat down by her window, which commanded a view of the carriage road, through the park, to watch for the return of her

cousin's wife.

The evening was lovely, and she could not feel astonished that Mrs. de Burgh should have prolonged her drive. A cool freshness had succeeded the sultriness of the day, and she had perhaps not gone out till late.