satisfied, my dear Rachel, with this assurance, and believe that my procrastination proceeds from my regard for your happiness, not from any abatement of my tenderness. You are, my child, under the eye of a mother, qualified to render you worthy of the one who bore you. I am not jealous of her ascendancy over you; tell her so; and that you have my permission to love her as tenderly as you can. She will be too just and too generous to monopolize your whole heart; but she will not forget to decorate that corner of it which your father occupies, and which a husband may share, with the ornament which passeth shew. Continue, as you have done, to deserve her maternal cares, and remain the hope of your truly affectionate father, “HENRY COWLEY.” “P. S. I write to Hardcastle, and Captain Vernon will inform you of my good looks, tho’ not in the rapturous style in which he speaks of my lovely girl, and his Heathcot holidays.” CHAP II. Thus passed the first transient cloud which had depressed the gaiety of Miss Cowley’s temper; and, delighted by the contents of her father’s letter, the glow of gratitude gave him an interest in her bosom which she had never before felt, and supplied her with a never-failing motive for proving herself worthy of such a father. In the following winter all was gloom and sadness at Heathcot. Mrs. Hardcastle was at first, to use her own encouraging words, “only slightly indisposed with a cold;” but the malady was of that sort which, whilst it represses hope, fallaciously invites it; and the calm and patient invalid, unwilling to break down its deceitful promises, aided the deceiver by her endearing smiles and uniform serenity, till her strength was subdued, and medicine was found useless. Month had thus succeeded to month: during this period Mrs. Hardcastle contemplated, with a foresight of that recompense she was shortly to reach, the fruits of welldoing, by witnessing the conduct of a child who had for so many years shared her maternal cares, and had been so peculiarly an object of her solicitude and vigilance. She beheld the restless, and volatile girl, stationed in the sick room, sedate, tender, and assiduous; prompt in every soothing, kind office; dexterous in every expedient to relieve and alleviate; patient of all opposition, and unwearied in watching by her side. She saw her character rising into magnanimity as the danger augmented; supporting by her fortitude the sinking spirits of Lucy, and cheering the despondency of Mr. Hardcastle by arguments drawn from a faith in which she herself trusted for support. She saw the pang of anguish checked by a smile of tender sympathy; and with the greetings of love and assumed cheerfulness, she saw the cheek of her beloved pupil pale with fatigue and grief. Horace could not be kept from a scene of this kind; he had been summoned home