Mr. Hamilton's family mourned Lord Delmont's early fate with sincere regret, though they had known but little of him; but about this time the thoughts of Mrs. Hamilton were turned in another direction, by a circumstance which caused unaffected sorrow in her daughter and niece; nor were she and her husband exempt. Lucy Harcourt had been so many years a member of the family, she had been so associated from their infancy in the affections of her pupils, that to part from her was the bitterest pang of sorrow that Emmeline had yet known, and it was long before Mrs. Hamilton herself could be reconciled to the idea of separation; she had ever regarded and treated Miss Harcourt as a sister, and intended that even when her family were settled, she should never want another home. It was not only her own virtues that had endeared her to Mrs. Hamilton; the services she had rendered her children, her active and judicious share in the arduous task of education, demanded and received from both Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton the meed of gratitude and esteem, and never once, in the seventeen years of Miss Harcourt's residence amongst them, had they regretted the impulse which had offered her a sheltering home and sympathising friends. Emmeline and Ellen were still her pupils, and Mrs. Hamilton intended them to remain so for two or three years longer, even after they were introduced, and it was on that account Miss Harcourt hesitated in complying with the earnest entreaty of him whose happy home in her early youth she had so nobly quitted, preferring to live by her own exertions than to share the home of the man she loved, when he was married to another. It had been very, very long ere disappointed affection had permitted her to be cheerful. Her cousin, while rejoicing in the happy home she had found, while congratulating her with fraternal interest on the kind friends her mother's virtues had procured her, imagined not the agony she was striving to conquer, the devoted love for him which disturbed the peace around her, which otherwise she might have enjoyed to its full extent; but she did conquer at length. That complete separation from him did much towards restoring peace although perhaps love might still have lingered; for what absence, what distance can change a woman's heart? Yet it interfered no longer with happiness, and she answered Seymour's constant and affectionate letters in his own style, as a sister would have done.