But on the other side of the fire sits a younger lady, with a calm air of matronly self-possession, which almost sets our memory at defiance; it is true that her face looks so youthful in its eloquent expressiveness that, but for that copy of it that shines at her knee, through the fair straggling locks of a little merry girl, you might fancy her still the Mary of ten years ago; but in the silent depths of her dark eyes sits such serene and assured happiness, at once so calm, and deep, and full, as makes one sure this cannot be the disconsolate inhabitant of yon dim chamber, weeping in her sleep in the first agony of womanly woe. Yet so it is, and lightly have these ten swift years--long, oh, how long and dreary to many--flown over her, effacing so entirely everything but the remembrance of those passages in her history from her mind, that when she looks back now upon that troubled time, she half smiles, half blushes for her old self, and reckons of her brief but agonising trial, as sick men recall to their memories the terrible dreams of some delirious fever fit. For Mary Melville has found entire and perfect kindred in the heart of one whom then she little recked of and cared not for, and she wonders now how she, ever the object of Charles Hamilton’s warm and full affection, could have overlooked his nobler qualities, and preferred instead Forsyth’s deceptive and hollow brilliancy, and the glitter of well-displayed accomplishments, which threw the blushing youth into the shade. And the blushing youth of our last chapter blushes no longer when he speaks to Mary, nor has his bashfulness been seen, Halbert says, for nine long years and more; never since one bright autumn evening, when Mary and he surprised Christian in her solitude by the whispered communication of an important agreement come to between them, and which was carried into effect, ratified and sealed, on the following new year’s day, fulfilling, in the most joyous manner, old Ailie’s dream. At this transaction Halbert’s presence was indispensable, albeit he was again, after Christian’s kind persuasions and James’s spirited remonstrances had shamed their father into liberality, finishing the long forsaken studies so disastrously interrupted of old, with a vigour and ardour that was unquenchable. True, he did not come to James’s wedding when it took place; but Christian, and Mary, and Charles Hamilton were each and all immovable in their demands; they could not do without Halbert, and so he was present at the ceremony, exciting Charles’s wrathful contradiction, and Christian and Mary’s curiosity, by hinting merrily of another Mary, whose presence would throw the bride of to-day into the shade, though no one at that blithe bridal looked on Mary Melville with more affectionate admiration than her brother Halbert. And lo! when the time of Halbert’s study and probations was over, and Providence had so ordered that the place of his ministry should be the same as that of his