"Bright effluence of bright essence increate." And woe to her, who, forgetting this heavenly union, bathes her heart in the earthly stream, without seeking the living spring whence it flows; who worships the fire-ray that falls upon the altar, without giving glory to him from whom it descended. The stream will become a stagnant pool, exhaling pestilence and death; the fire-ray will kindle a devouring flame, destroying the altar, with the gift and the heart a _burning bush_, that will blaze forever without consuming. Whither am I wandering? Imagine me now, in a very different scene to the president's illuminated drawing-room. Instead of the wild buzzing of mingling voices, I hear the mournful sighing of the breeze through the weeping grave trees; and ever and anon there comes a soft, stealing sound through the long, swaying grass, like the tread of invisible feet. I am alone with my mother's spirit. The manuscript, that is to reveal the mystery of my parentage, is in my hand. The hour is come, when without violating the commands of the dead, I may claim it as my own, and remove the hermetic seal which death has stamped. Where else could I read it? My own room, once so serenely quiet, was no longer a sanctuary,--for Margaret Melville dashed through the house, swinging open the doors as abruptly as a March wind, and her laugh filled every nook and corner of the capacious mansion. How could I unseal the sacred history of my mother's sorrows within the sound of that loud, echoing ha, ha? I could not; so I stole away to a spot, where sacred silence has set up its everlasting throne. The sun had not yet gone down, but the shadows of the willows lengthened on the grass. I sat at the foot of the grave leaning against a marble slab, and unsealed, with cold and trembling hands, my mother's _heart_, for so that manuscript seemed to me. At first I could not see the lines, for my tears rained down so fast they threatened to obliterate the delicate characters; but after repeated efforts I acquired composure enough to read the following brief and thrilling history. It was the opening of the sixth seal of my life. The stars of hope fell, as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken by a mighty wind, and the heaven of my happiness departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the mountains and islands of human trust were moved out of their places. MY MOTHER'S HISTORY. "Gabriella, before your eyes shall rest on these pages, mine will be closed in the slumbers of death. Let not your heart be troubled, my only beloved, at the record of wrongs which no longer corrode; of sorrows which are all past away. 'In my Father's house are many mansions,' and one of them is prepared for me. It is my Saviour's promise, and I believe it as firmly as if I saw the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, where that heavenly mansion is built.