She raised her eyes and began to feel a regretful longing for the sun-gilt or cloud capped mountains, which for so long had met her gaze, towering above the highest tree-tops of the Glan Pennant gardens--and then a sense of strangeness and desolation came creeping over her feelings. For the first time she seemed to realize the true nature of her present position--and the sight of some labourers, wending their way across the by-paths from their daily toil, tended to bring her gathering sadness to a crisis. "They are going home," she murmured, and a few tears stole gently down her cheeks. Then she thought of her sisters--the youngest, in particular, as most lately and intimately associated with her in sympathy and companionship, now so far divided, not only by distance, but by the different ties and interests of her new estate; and then occurred to her the words she had so lately heard. "Do you think you will find your cousin's house agreeable to you?" and she began to ask herself that question too, though not for the same reason, which had suggested the question to Mr. Temple--not lest it might prove too gay and worldly for her tastes and inclination, but by reason of the loneliness she might therein experience--that worst of loneliness--the loneliness of the heart, or,-- "She might meet with kindness and be lonely still, For gratitude is not companionship." Why then had she come here, would not her sister Alice, have gladly opened her doors to receive her? And all the comparative inconvenience and discomfort of that arrangement, seemed to melt into insignificance before the other attractions of the picture suddenly conjured up. A sister's warm, and earnest welcome--the familiar family voice which would have greeted her, the tone of which at once would have made her feel at home, though in a strange land, amongst unfamiliar scenes and personages, whilst even the noisy delight of half-a-dozen nephews, and nieces, which would have celebrated her arrival, came before her fancy--as she sat in her silent solitary grandeur--in most alluring contrast with her present undemonstrative, though luxurious reception. But no! she had been attracted by the urgent and pressing desire expressed in the letters of her cousins, to make their house her home until the return of her brother to England, and there had been something in the impression she had received, or the associations connected with her memories of those relatives, that had moved her, perhaps with little reflection, to embrace the offer. But now she is thinking on the fête of six years ago--of the urgent alacrity with which her cousin and his beautiful intended had then volunteered their protection and support, and their subsequent neglect and abandonment. Might not this incident be a type of what she had to expect, under her present circumstances?