"I can, Mary--though I never received a line from you, it never occurred to me to fear any change in your affection. Our marriage had placed on it the seal of duty, and your conduct in relation to your father had shown me that that seal you could not easily break." "Then you did not love me less for not yielding every other consideration to the gratification of your wishes?" said Mary, endeavoring to speak lightly, but betraying deeper feeling by the slight tremor in her voice, and the quick blush mantling in her cheek. "Love you less!" exclaimed Colonel Percy warmly--"my love had been little worthy of your acceptance, dearest, had it been lessened by seeing that your principles were paramount even to your affections. Happy would it be for all your sex, Mary, did they recognize as the only test of a true and noble love, that it increases with the increase of esteem, and finds more pleasure in the excellence of its object than in its own selfish triumphs." Ere the winter of 1815 had set in, Mary's rounded form and blooming cheek relieved all Mr. Sinclair's apprehension of her consumptive tendencies, and proved that her love was indeed, as he had said, "a part of her life." CHAPTER XIV. The New-Year's day--the day after which the year is no longer new--is come and gone; and while sitting here to record its events before I sleep, I look back at it with pleasure, chastened by such thoughts as the young seldom have. I believe of all such eras the aged may say as the poet says of his birthday: "What a different sound That word had in my younger years! And every time the chain comes round, Less and less bright the link appears." To all, these eras mark their progress on the journey of life; but to the young they are bright with the promise of a happier future; the aged, they direct to the grave of the buried past, and they read on them the inscription so often found on the Roman monumental stones, "Siste, Viator." Travellers are we from time to eternity, and it is well that we should meet with these imperative calls to stand and consider. Cheered by the Christian's hope, we can stand; we can look steadily on the past, count the lengthening line of these memorials of our dead years, and feel that but few more probably lie between us and the river of death, yet, strong in the might of Death's great Conqueror, "bate no jot of heart or hope." These are grave though not sad thoughts; too grave to mingle readily with the record of mirthful scenes, howsoever innocent may have been the mirth. I must, therefore, lay aside my pen, and reserve the description of our New-Year for tomorrow.