As for Mary, she walked about more like a person half awakening from a long and happy dream, who feels herself struggling hard not to break the pleasant spell. It seemed to her, that there was a dull and silent vacuum reigning over the large mansion, she had never before perceived. She looked wearily from the window upon the dreary December scene, and it seemed that almost for the first time she became aware that it was not the bright summer month which had marked her first arrival. She felt that now, she also would be glad to go. What! glad to leave the spot where, who knows poor Mary, but that the brief bright summer time of your existence has passed and gone? For there is a summer time in the life of every mortal being--a more or less bright, passionate ecstatic season of enjoyment, though wofully--fearfully evanescent are the flowers and leaves which mark some mortals' summer time. But why lament for this--if, may be, the autumn with its calm cool chastened light be longer thine? The morning of departure arrived--and pale and passive in the midst of all the bustle and excitement attendant on the starting of a large family party, composed of servants, children, a lady suffering from the nervous and uncomfortable feelings attendant on her situation, and a rather fidgetty, impatient husband--pale and passive, yet with an inwardly bruised and sinking sensation of the heart, Mary entered the carriage, and was soon borne far away from the vicinity of Silverton and Montrevor. CHAPTER IV. Oh, thou dark and gloomy city! Let me turn my eyes from thee; Sorrow, sympathy nor pity, In thy presence seems to be; Darkness like a pall hath bound thee-- Shadow of thy world within-- With thy drear revealings round me, Love seems vain, and hope a sin. L. E. L. Mary on her arrival in London, went straight to Portman Square, where she was received with affectionate gladness by her venerable relations. They, of course, had been amongst the first to be made aware of their niece's matrimonial prospects, and proud and happy did the intelligence render the worthy pair. Full and hearty were the congratulations poured upon the pale and drooping _fiancée_,--to be silenced for the time by the dejected answer: "Yes, dear aunt, but for the present our marriage is postponed."