Her inquiries were answered in the most satisfactory manner; as, fortunately for Mrs Mowbray, with the remembrance of her daughter had recurred to her that daughter's benevolent example. She remembered the satisfaction which used to beam from Adeline's countenance when she returned from her visits to the sick and the afflicted; and she resolved to try whether those habits of charitable exertion which could increase the happiness of the young and light-hearted Adeline, might not have power to alleviate the sorrows of her own drooping age, and broken joyless heart. 'Sweet are the uses of adversity!'--She who, while the child of prosperity, was a romantic, indolent theorist, an inactive speculator, a proud contemner of the dictates of sober experience, and a neglecter of that practical benevolence which can in days produce more benefit to others than theories and theorists can accomplish in years--this erring woman, awakened from her dreams and reveries, to habits of useful exertion, by the stimulating touch of affliction, was become the visitor of the sick, the consoler of the sorrowful, the parent of the fatherless, while virtuous industry looked up to her with hope; and her name, like that of Adeline in happier days, was pronounced with prayers and blessings. But, alas! she felt that blessing could reach her only in the shape of her lost child: and though she was conscious of being useful to others, though she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had but the day before been the means of preserving a valuable life, she met Mrs Pemberton, when she arrived at the Lawn, with a countenance of fixed melancholy, and was at first disposed to expect but little success from the project of writing to Adeline's former lodgings in order to inquire. The truth was, that Miss Woodville had artfully insinuated the improbability of such an inquiry's succeeding; and, though Mrs Mowbray had angrily asserted her hopes when Miss Woodville provokingly asserted her _fears_, the treacherous girl's insinuations had sunk deeply into her mind, and Mrs Pemberton saw, with pain and wonder, an effect produced of which the cause was wholly unseen. But she at length succeeded in awakening Mrs Mowbray's hopes; and in a letter written by Mrs Pemberton to the mistress of the house whence Adeline formerly dated, she enclosed one to her daughter glowing with maternal tenderness, and calculated to speak peace to her sorrows. These letters were sent, as soon as written, to the post by Mrs Mowbray's footman; but Miss Woodville contrived to meet him near the post-office, and telling him she would put the letter in the receiver, she gave him a commission to call at a shop in Penrith for her, at which she had not time to call herself.