My uncle from time to time addressed to me--with little presents--kind, pleasant, affectionate notes--and these I treasured up as sacred relics. A visit of my guardians was a yet more tumultuous pleasure; but it always left me in increased anguish. Some robberies had been committed on the road to town.--After parting with my friends, I have laid awake the whole night, conjuring up in my imagination all the tragic accidents I had ever heard or read of, and persuading myself some of them must have happened to these darling objects of my affection. Thus passed the first twelvemonth of my exile from all I loved; during which time it was reported, by my school-fellows, that I had never been seen to smile. After the vacations, I was carried back to my prison with agonizing reluctance, to which in the second year I became, however, from habit, better reconciled. I learned music, was praised and encouraged by my master, and grew fond of it; I contracted friendships, and regained my vivacity; from a forlorn, unsocial, being, I became, once more, lively, active, enterprising,--the soul of all amusement, and the leader of every innocently mischievous frolic. At the close of another year I left school. I kept up a correspondence for some time with a few of my young friends, and my effusions were improved and polished by my paternal uncle. CHAPTER V This period, which I had anticipated with rapture, was soon clouded by the gradual decay, and premature death, of my revered and excellent guardian. He sustained a painful and tedious sickness with unshaken fortitude;--with more, with chearfulness. I knelt by his bedside on the day of his decease; and, while I bathed his hand with my tears, caught hope from the sweet, the placid, serenity of his countenance, and could not believe the terrors of dissolution near. 'The last sentiment of my heart,' said he, 'is gratitude to the Being who has given me so large a portion of good; and I resign my family into his hands with confidence.' He awoke from a short slumber, a few minutes before his death.--'Emma,' said he, in a faint voice, (as I grasped his cold hand between both mine) turning upon me a mild, yet dying, eye, 'I have had a pleasant sleep--Be a good girl, and comfort your aunt!'-- He expired without a groan, or a struggle--'His death was the serene evening of a beautiful day!' I gazed on his lifeless remains, the day before their interment, and the features still wore the same placid, smiling benignity. I was then about fourteen years of age,--this first emotion of real sorrow rent my heart asunder!