Adeline, sighing deeply, answered, that they were going to live in Cumberland; and then sunk into silence again, as she could not give the mulatto her true reasons for the plan that she was pursuing without wounding her affectionate heart in a manner wholly incurable. The truth was, that Adeline supposed herself to be declining: she thought that she experienced those dreadful languors, those sensations of internal weakness, which, however veiled to the eye of the observer, speak in forcible language to the heart of the conscious sufferer. Indeed, Adeline had long struggled, but in vain, against feelings of a most overwhelming nature; amongst which, remorse and horror, for having led by her example and precepts an innocent girl into a life of infamy, were the most painfully predominant: for, believing Mary Warner's assertion when she saw her at Mr Langley's chambers, she looked upon that unhappy girl's guilt as the consequence of her own; and mourned, incessantly mourned, over the fatal errors of her early judgment, which had made her, though an idolater of virtue, a practical assistant to the cause of vice. When Adeline imagined the term of her existence to be drawing nigh, her mother, her obdurate but still dear mother, regained her wonted ascendancy over her affections; and to her, the approach of death seemed fraught with satisfaction. For that parent, so long, so repeatedly deaf to her prayers, and to the detail of those sufferings which she had made one of the conditions of her forgiveness, had promised to see and to forgive her on her _death-bed_; and her heart yearned, fondly yearned, for the moment when she should be pressed to the bosom of a relenting parent. To Cumberland, therefore, she was resolved to hasten, and into the very neighbourhood of Mrs Mowbray; while, as the chaise wheeled them along to the place of their destination, even the prattle of her child could not always withdraw her from the abstraction into which she was plunged, as the scenes of her early years thronged upon her memory, and with them the recollection of those proofs of a mother's fondness, for a renewal of which, even in the society of Glenmurray, she had constantly and despondingly sighed. As they approached Penrith, her emotion redoubled, and she involuntarily exclaimed--'Cruel, but still dear, mother, you little think your child is so near!' 'Heaven save me!' cried Savanna; 'are we to go and be near dat woman?' 'Yes,' replied Adeline. 'Did she not say she would forgive me on my death-bed?' 'But you not there yet, dear missess,' sobbed Savanna; 'you not there of long years!' 'Savanna,' returned Adeline, 'I should die contented to purchase my mother's blessing and forgiveness.' Savanna, speechless with contending emotions, could not express by words the feeling of mixed sorrow and indignation which overwhelmed her; but she replied by putting Editha in Adeline's arms; then articulating with effort, 'Look there!' she sobbed aloud.