As soon as her father left her, Laura, determined not to be brave by halves, began the painful task of destroying every relic of Hargrave's presence. She banished from her port-folio the designs he had made for her drawings, destroyed the music from which he had accompanied her, and effaced from her books the marks of his pencil. She had amused her solitary hours by drawing, in chalks, a portrait of features indelibly engraven on her recollection, and her fortitude failed her when about to consign it to the flames.--'No;' she exclaimed, 'I can never part with this. This, at least, I may love unreproved,' and she pressed it in agony to her heart--inwardly vowing that no human being should fill its place. But such thoughts as these could not linger in the reasonable mind of Laura. The next moment she blushed for her weakness; and, casting away its last treasure, averted her eyes till the flames had consumed it to ashes. 'Now all is over,' she cried, as she threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. But, quickly wiping them away, she resolved that she would not wilfully bind herself to the rack of recollection, and hastened to exert herself in some of her ordinary employments. Laura was aware that the cottage, where every walk, every shrub, every flower spoke of Hargrave, was a scene unlikely to aid her purpose of forgetting him; and, therefore, she that evening proposed to her father that they should pay their long promised visit to Mrs Douglas. He readily consented. Their journey was fixed for the following day, and Laura occupied herself in preparing for their departure, though with feelings far different from the delight with which, a few days before, she would have anticipated a meeting with her early friend. CHAPTER IV