on her reaching it, quickly and alone; and she was doomed never to see it more. She advances resolutely, but cautiously. The waves rise higher--she is in the midst of the stream--her footing becomes more unsteady--does she look back?--there is no return--her heart proudly repels the very thought of desiring it. She gathers her garments about her--she looks right onward--she steps more carefully--the surges buffet her--they rise higher and higher--the spray is dashed over her head, and blinds her sight--a false step--she falls--the waters open to ingulf her--she is borne away. One thought of her Gerard--one prayer to Heaven, and the human eye can pursue the parting soul no farther. She is lost to earth--none upon it can any longer claim a portion in her. But she is innocent. The last word murmured in her last sleep--the last word human ears heard her utter, was her son's name. To the last she was all mother; her heart filled with that deep yearning, which a young mother feels to be the very essence of her life, for the presence of her child. There is something so beautiful in a young mother's feelings. Usually a creature to be fostered and protected--taught to look to another for aid and safety; yet a woman is the undaunted guardian of her little child. She will expose herself to a thousand dangers to shield his fragile being from harm. If sickness or injury approach him, her heart is transfixed by terror: readily, joyfully, she would give her own blood to sustain him. The world is a hideous desert when she is threatened to be deprived of him; and when he is near, and she takes him to the shelter of her bosom, and wraps him in her soft, warm embrace, she cares for nothing beyond that circle; and his smiles and infantine caresses are the life of her life. Such a mother was Alithea; and in Gerard she possessed a son capable of calling forth in its intensity, and of fully rewarding, her maternal tenderness. What wonder, when she saw him cast pitilessly down on the road-side--alive or dead she knew not--the wheel of the carriage that bore her away might have crushed and destroyed his tender limbs--what wonder that she should be threatened by instant death, through the excess of her agony? What wonder that, reviving from death, her first and only thought was to escape--to get back to him--to clasp him to her heart--never to be severed more? How glad, and yet how miserable, Gerard would be to read this tale. His proudest and fondest assertions certified as true, and yet to feel that he had lost her for ever, whose excellence was proved to be thus paramount. Elizabeth's reflections now rested on him--and now turned to Falkner--and now she opened the manuscript again, and read anew--and then again her heart made its commentary, and she wept and rejoiced; and longed to comfort her father, and congratulate Neville, all in a breath.