"And has Aurora chased the sable cloud, And, even jealous of a twilight grey, Dispelled with sudden touch that mourning shroud, And with her saffron robe unfurled the day? "Alas! the graceful Cactus now no more, Queen of the dark, asserts her silver reign, Her empire nought on earth can e'er restore, With other faded flowers she strews the plain." [Footnote A: The Cactus Grandiflora, or Night-blowing Cereus.] "These lines," continued Emily, "first taught my parents the nature and extent of those feelings which had outlived the blights of early hope. They appear to prove that, however shipwrecked had been his own happiness, Mr. Otway had respected a perfect freedom of choice, and, though Mr. Stanhope differed widely from him, he had tutored his unselfish soul to consider this rival as the successful candidate in an election, the honourable fairness of which he had no right to question. It would seem that, in the depth of his heart, Mrs. Stanhope's pardon had been sealed, and when the death of her husband released her from her first vows, a romantic mixture of affection, which borrowed a reflected glow from the memory of brighter days, and that high and delicate respect of which the most refined and exalted minds alone are capable, spread round the consecrated image a mantle of fond protective kindness, akin perhaps to love, as pity is said to be, but so beautifully tempered, that it would never have passed the sacred boundary of friendship pure as angels might have breathed. The unseen bonds which had silently preserved connection between our friend and a woman whom I can never believe to have been at any time deserving such attachment as he bestowed, was rudely severed by Mrs. Stanhope's late conduct; and, for some time, the impression which such levity as was discovered in her second ill-assorted marriage made upon a mind almost morbidly sensitive, threatened to impair the benevolence of a character formed to shed on all around an atmosphere of happiness; but a strong sense of religion, which is the pole-star of his every action, gained its second victory; and time gave him back, once more unshorn of his beams, to be the life and animation of that little society who enjoy the blessing of his presence. I must hurry you through the remaining part of my _memoir_, not only because we are arriving at Susan's cabin, but also because it is so interwoven with the sorrows of Glenalta, that I fear to trust myself with a theme too fresh in recollection to bear the light; suffice it to say, that Heaven has given us such a friend in Mr. Otway, as no measure of gratitude can ever repay."