“It was here that he formed an attachment to a lovely young Scottish maiden, by the name of Morna Donald. Her father had been the leader of a clan, which had often made incursions on the border, and, of course, his name was in ‘ill odor’ with the English gentry of the neighboring lands. But the gentle Morna bloomed in unstained purity and innocence, the brightest flower on Scottish heath—and she gave the ‘jewel of her heart’ to the gallant and open hearted Ridgely, not dreaming how soon it would be withered by the cold blight of scorn and unkindness. “All his family, except my mother, spurned poor Morna as the daughter of a savage rebel, and declared they felt it a disgrace to receive her into their houses. Ridgely's feelings were wounded in the keenest manner by this treatment, and he would have sunk under the mortification, but for the soothing affection of my mother, between whom and himself there existed the warmest and most confidential intimacy. She proffered her heart and her house to receive the forlorn Morna, who found her bosom the ark of safety and repose, amidst the storms by which she was buffetted. About this time his commission was obtained, but the regiment not being called into service, the young couple, at my mother's solicitation, remained with her during the first year of their marriage. The spirits of the young bride had received a shock of disappointment from which they never recovered. She was calm and resigned, but the thrill of pleasure which once gave joy to her heart and beauty to her countenance, was gone never to return. Sadness preyed on her health, but her friends looked forward in hope to the interesting period when a mother's cares and a mother's love should win her spirit back to hope and happiness. “How fallacious are human expectations! The same wave that cast the little orphan on the shores of time, bore the mother to the ocean of eternity. With a smile of perfect confidence, she gave the bud of promise into the arms of my mother, saying, this is yours, the last gift of the dying Morna—a precious pledge of her unwavering trust in your affection. And most faithfully was that pledge redeemed by my mother! from that moment did the little Morna lie in her bosom, and receive all the tenderness of maternal care. Having a few months previously lost her only child, an infant twelve months old, all her tenderness was now centred in her new charge, whose beauty and sprightliness promised to repay all her attention.