The next three years passed quietly away; but my parents observed with pain that Lady Helen's visits to Seymour Park became more and more frequent, though Lord Seymour had married a young wife before his daughter's return, who was jealous to excess of Lady Helen's influence over her lord, and that she had evidently lost much of her enjoyment of their society. The truth was, that though Lady Helen did not envy the happiness of my parents, it was not always that she could bear to witness it; because it recalled painfully to her mind the period of her life when _she was equally_ happy; and she had no longer that sympathy with my mother which is the foundation and the cement of friendly intercourse; so true is it, that _equality of prosperity_, like _equality of situation_, is necessary to give _stability_ to friendship. My mother, though she felt this, was too delicate openly to repine. My intercourse with her, and the benefit which I derived from her instructions, remained the same, for I was always allowed to accompany Lady Helen to Seymour Park. But, alas! the tide of sympathy towards my poor mother, which had been checked in Lady Helen's bosom by happiness, now flowed again with increased fulness, when she was summoned to console her under a sorrow kindred with her own. My father had been saved from the dangers of war, to perish at home by a _violent death_. He was thrown from his horse, struck his head against a stone, and died upon the spot. Lady Helen having removed her to her own house, devoted her whole attention to the offices of a comforter. In proportion as my poor mother's sense of happiness had been keen, her sense of privation was overwhelming. But, so curiously, so mercifully are we fashioned, that we are sometimes able to derive medicine for our suffering from its very excess. My mother was, as you well know, a woman of _high aspirings_, and loved to be pre-eminent in all things. She was proud of her conjugal love; she was proud of the dangers which she had dared under its influence, and of the sufferings to which she rose superior, to prove the tender excess of that love; she was proud, also, of her good fortune, in having her husband's life so long preserved to her, and she gloried in his devoted and faithful affection. But now of this idolized husband she was bereaved in a moment, and without any alleviating circumstances. Soothing, though painful, are the tears which we shed for those who fall in battle; and sweet, "like music in the dead of night," heard after distressing dreams, or while we are kept waking by mournful realities, falls the sound of a _nation's regret_ on the ear of those who weep over a _departed hero_.