The character of a constant mourner is sometimes introduced in romances of the earlier and nobler class; but it is rare in those works of fiction, and indeed it is not common in what has happily been called the romance of real life. Let me however restrict this assertion within its proper bounds. What is meant to be here asserted (and it is pertinent to this part of our story,) is, that it is not common for any one who has been left a widow, or widower, early in life, to remain so always out of pure affection to the memory of the dead, unmingled with any other consideration or cause. Such constancy can be found only where there is the union of a strong imagination and a strong heart,—which perhaps is a rare union; and if to these a strong mind be united, the effect would probably be different. It is only in a strong imagination that the deceased object of affection can retain so firm a hold, as never to be dispossessed from it by a living one; and when the imagination is thus possessed, unless the heart be strong, the heart itself, or the intellect is likely to give way. A deep sense of religion would avert the latter alternative; but I will not say that it is any preservative against the former. A most affecting instance of this kind is related by Dr. Uwins in his Treatise on Disorders of the Brain. A lady on the point of marriage, whose intended husband usually travelled by the stage-coach to visit her, went one day to meet him, and found instead of him an old friend who came to announce to her the tidings of his sudden death. She uttered a scream, and piteously exclaimed—“he is dead!” But then all consciousness of the affliction that had befallen her ceased. “From that fatal moment,” says the Author, “has this unfortunate female daily for fifty years, in all seasons, traversed the distance of a few miles to the spot where she expected her future husband to alight from the coach; and every day she utters in a plaintive tone, ‘He is not come yet! I will return to-morrow!’”