return in the spring.” And soon after saying this, she dismissed all the bright-eyed, light-hearted children to their homes. Rosalie had been directed by her physician to spend the fall and winter in the South. She had an old, standing engagement to spend a few months in Louisiana, at the house of the Lauderdales, with whom she had kept up a regular correspondence. But, previous to embracing this opportunity of benefitting her health by accepting the invitation, Rosalie wrote to her step-mother, telling her frankly of the feeble state of her health and the precarious tenure of her life, and of the order of her physician relative to her removal South; but expressing, at the same time, her dread of the inconvenience and trouble to which her illness and death at their house might possibly subject her host and hostess. There could but one possible answer to such a letter suggest itself to the mind of Rosalie’s affectionate step-mother—it was an answer in her own person. Accordingly, in about two weeks from the day that Rosalie mailed her letter to Mrs. Lauderdale, that lady arrived at Shelton, stopping only long enough at the hotel to write a note to Mark Sutherland, requesting him to break the news of her presence to Rosalie, and then come and take her to his wife. The meeting between Rosalie and her step-mother was most affectionate and tender; but the patience of Rose and the self-possession of Mrs. Lauderdale restrained their mutual agitation. Mrs. Lauderdale had come, in person, to take her step-daughter to Louisiana, that she might nurse and watch over her during the journey. And as soon as she found herself alone with Mark Sutherland, she said— “And you must let her go at once, dear Mark. She is iller than you think, and the mornings and the evenings are already chill in this bleak clime. Yes, dear Mark, you must let her go at once; and if you cannot possibly leave your political interests here, you may confidently trust her to me on the journey, for I love her as my own child, and will not leave her, night or day; and you can join us as soon as you get through this bustling and bothersome election.” “No, I will never suffer her to go without me. I will accompany her—attend upon her. I will never leave her again. Let the election go. What is success to me, if I lose her? You do not know all that she has been to me—all that she is to me—Mrs. Lauderdale! I tell you, if she should sink into the grave, earth could not offer me a boon so welcome as the half of that grave!” A few days after this, the whole party set out for the South, and in a little more than a week arrived at the beautiful home of the Lauderdales.