'I look on the separation of my mother and me in this world to be eternal,' said the poor dear lost Adeline to me, the last time we met. 'You do!' replied I: 'then, poor devil! how miserable will your mother be when her resentment subsides!--Well, when that time comes, I may, perhaps see her again,' added I, with a queer something rising in my throat as I said it, and your poor girl blessed me for the kind intention.--(Pshaw! I have blotted the paper: at my years it is a shame to be so watery-eyed.) Well,--the time above-mentioned is come--you are miserable, you are repentant--and you ask me to forget and forgive.--I do forget, I do forgive: some time or other, too, I will tell you so in person; and were the lost Adeline to know that I did so, she would bless me for the act, as she did before for the intention. But, alas! where she is, what she is, I know not, and have not any means of knowing. To say the truth, her conduct to me and mine has been odd, not to say wrong. But, poor thing! she is either dead or miserable, and I forgive her:--so I do you, as I said before, and the Lord give you all the consolation which you so greatly need! Yours once more, In true kindness of spirit, JAMES NORBERRY.' This letter made Mrs Mowbray's wounds bleed afresh, at the same time that it destroyed all her expectations of finding Adeline; and the only hope that remained to cheer her was, that she might perhaps, if yet alive, write sooner or later, to implore forgiveness, but month after month elapsed, and no tidings of Adeline reached her despairing mother. She then put an advertisement in the paper, so worded that Adeline, had she seen it, must have known to whom it alluded; but it never met her eyes, and Mrs Mowbray gave herself up to almost absolute despair; when accident introduced her to a new acquaintance, whose example taught her patience, and whose soothing benevolence bade her hope for happier days. One day as Mrs Mowbray, regardless of a heavy shower, and lost in melancholy reflections, was walking with irregular steps on the road to Penrith, with an unopened umbrella in her hand, she suddenly raised her eyes from the ground, and beheld a Quaker lady pursued by an over-driven bullock, and unable any longer to make an effort to escape its fury. At this critical moment Mrs Mowbray, from a sort of irresistible impulse, as fortunate in its effects as presence of mind, yet scarcely perhaps to be denominated such, suddenly opened her umbrella; and, approaching the animal, brandished it before his eyes. Alarmed at this unusual appearance, he turned hastily and ran towards the town, where she saw that he was immediately met and secured.