"Selina! you have always been a good child, and obeyed me; when I am gone, mind what Mrs. Galton says to you. If I had followed her advice, I should have been better now." The baronet spoke with much difficulty, and, exhausted with the effort, closed his eyes in a temporary lethargy. Selina answered not, but with streaming eyes kissed his hand in token of obedience. At last, raising his head from his pillow, "Where is Augustus? he is a long time coming."--at that instant footsteps were heard slowly and softly traversing the anteroom. Selina opening the door admitted Augustus: she would have retired, but her father signed her approach; and recovering his strength a little, faltered out, "Happy to see you, my dear boy--I have been a father to you, Augustus, be a brother to this poor girl." Augustus poured forth his feelings with more fervency than prudence, and was stopped in the expression of them by Selina, who perceived her father was quite exhausted: he once more opened his eyes, saying, "I die content;" he struggled for utterance, but his words were unintelligible, and he could only articulate, "Go away,--Send Mrs. Galton." Augustus flew to bring her, whilst Selina hung in distraction over her dying parent: as they entered the room, her exclamation of "Oh! my father, my dear father!" gave them warning, that all was over; and when they approached the bed, parent and child were lying side by side, the one apparently as lifeless as the other. Augustus, in his first distraction, thought he had lost Selina as well as his beloved and revered friend, but being recalled to his senses by Mrs. Galton, assisted her in removing Selina to another room. At length their exertions revived Selina to a dreadful consciousness of her misfortune--how agonizing was that moment, when, in her frantic grief, she upbraided their kind care, and wished they had left her to die by her father's side! "I have no parent now." "Dearest child of my heart, have I not ever been a mother to you, and will you refuse to be still my daughter when I stand so much in need of consolation?" Selina threw herself into her aunt's arms, and gave vent, in tears, to the sorrow of her bursting heart; at length she cried herself to sleep, like a child, and her aunt remained at her side all night, ready to soften the horrors of her waking moments. Selina, next day, being comparatively calm, was wisely left in perfect solitude to disburthen her heart: her grief was not insulted by officious condolence, too often resembling reproof rather than comfort. The aspect of grief is obnoxious to the comparatively happy, and they often use but unskilful endeavours to banish her from their sight, more for their own ease, than for the relief of the unfortunate beings who are bound down to the earth by her oppressive power. Those who have felt it, will with caution obtrude themselves on her sacred privacy, and will know when to be mute in the presence of the mourner.