[17] See page 35. Here we conclude this desultory outline of the history of Bonville, and as our feet make homeward, many thoughts haunt us over the marvels--for they are nothing less--that fill its phases of human relation. In the middle of its recital, which concluded with the untimely death of Lord Bonville, we said it was a relief to turn aside from the atrocities mingled with the strife of the Roses. In its continuation, for a while, under the more settled rule of Tudor, there were comparatively fewer horrors to chronicle, but the union of the royal houses, emblemed by the rival flowers, was cemented with blood, its ghastly trail followed into the spirit of the new dynasty, and gathering strength as the three generations of Grey passed, culminated at length in a tragedy for size and importance unsurpassed in the annals of our national history. Its last representative, although a subject only, had wedded the grand-daughter of one, and cousin of another of the reigning Kings, and who had herself also been a Queen in her own right. Here the topmost pinnacle of alliance with the highest worldly station had been reached, but only to experience the fate of that often-witnessed terrific downfall, which follows the promptings engendered by the unsatisfied ambition of attaining to such dangerous altitude. Within three short years, three headless dukes--of foremost station in their native land, and allied to each other by ties of relationship--passed from the scaffold on Tower Hill to obscure and unmarked graves in the little Chapel of that fortress; and with them went also, after experiencing the same terrible ordeal, following her youthful husband, a young and guileless victim, almost the sole representative of the new stock, into which the last tender branch of the extinct house of Bonville had been engraffed. Enough, sayest thou, friend of mine, of this harrowing relation;--quite so,--our story is ended. Life was indeed intended for happier results than these, and how much better the simple delights, enjoyments and pleasures of unenvied station, that in their possession are ever "Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne;" and unsmote by the glamour of the basilisk Ambition, whose fascination lives on the ever unsatisfied desire for fame or station, until often, when too late and past recall, the illusion vanishes as the victim disappears over the verge of the unseen, treacherous precipice of irretrievable ruin. The shadows grow deeper between the hedgerows as we saunter homeward, a dewy mist is settling down the valley, and a cheery glint salutes us here and there from the cottage windows as we pass along. Listen! What melody do we hear, with greeting so soft and soothing? Aye, artless as it is, that, which in this world, for sweetness knows no rival, even A MOTHER'S SONG.