certain in a future state? Has it not already commenced here? May not then all reproaches be spared when we are suffering more than human enmity can wish us,--when our very existence is a bitterer reproach to us than malignity can utter?”--As she spoke, she added, wiping a cold tear from her wasted cheek, “My stroke is heavier than my groaning!” “At other times she appeared to listen to the language of the Puritan preachers (for all were preachers who frequented the house) with some appearance of attention, and then, rushing from them without any conviction but that of despair, exclaimed in her haste, “All men are liars!” Thus it fares with those who wish to make an instant transition from one world to another,--it is impossible,--the cold wave interposes--for ever interposes, between the wilderness and the land of promise--and we may as soon expect to tread the threshold which parts life and death without pain, as to cross the interval which separates two modes of existence so distinct as those of passion and religion, without struggles of the soul inexpressible--without groanings which cannot be uttered. “To these struggles there was soon to be an addition. Letters at this period circulated very slowly, and were written only on important occasions. Within a very short period, Elinor received two letters by express from Mortimer Castle, written by her cousin Margaret. The first announced the arrival of John Sandal at the Castle,--the second, the death of Mrs Ann,--the postscriptums of both contained certain mysterious hints relative to the interruption of the marriage,--intimations that the cause was known only to the writer, to Sandal and to his mother,--and entreaties that Elinor would return to the Castle, and partake of the _sisterly_ love with which Margaret and John Sandal would be glad to receive her. The letters dropt from her hand as she received them,--of John Sandal she had never ceased to think, but she had never ceased to wish not to think,--and his name even now gave her a pang which she could neither utter or suppress, and which burst forth in an involuntary shriek, that seemed like the last string that breaks in the exquisite and too-highly strung instrument of the human heart. “Over the account of Mrs Ann’s death, she lingered with that fearful feeling that a young adventurer experiences, who sees a noble vessel set out before him on a voyage of discovery, and wishes, while lingering in harbour himself, that he was already at the shore where _it_ has arrived, and tasted of its repose, and participated in its treasures. “Mrs Ann’s death had not been unworthy of that life of magnanimity and high heroic feeling which had marked every hour of her mortal existence--she had espoused the cause of the rejected Elinor, and sworn in the chapel of Mortimer Castle, while Margaret knelt beside, never to admit within its walls the deserter of his betrothed bride.