The only gleam of the past happy days seemed to be on the head of the wise and loving Ann Woodburn. The effect of his father’s changed views, revealed on his deathbed, had been on Sir Henry Clavering such as she had hoped. He had thought deeply on this unexpected confession. The peace with which he had seen his father depart had made a deep impression on his mind through his affectionate nature. He had arrived soon so far, that he felt that there was something beyond the mere teachings of physical nature and the wisdom of the schools which we need to enable us to push off our spiritual bark into the unknown with confidence. He accepted, therefore, like his father, the Saviour which the Gospel proclaims, though ponderous difficulties lay betwixt his conceptions of this Saviour as a messenger of God, and as God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. But Ann, filled now with the brightest hopes, helped him along this valley of stumbling and of huge stones fallen from the bald rocks of long past ages. She put into his hands Paley’s “Evidences,” Butler’s “Analogy,” and other ably reasoned works of her Church, and marked with deep satisfaction their gradual effect. She no longer talked of leaving Sir Henry to his freedom of choice for a wife. She found herself daily drawn into a nearer and more kindred unity with him. All real obstacles to their marriage were, in fact, surmounted, and that event was regarded as at hand, when these unhappy circumstances connected with Letty’s fortunes, and others yet to be related, made her beg that the marriage might be a little delayed, that it might be celebrated under happier auspices, if possible. Meantime, the political difficulties of the period, and irritated condition of the people at large, and of the manufacturing population in particular, kept Sir Henry actively engaged in his magisterial duties. He generally looked in at the Grange in going to and returning from Castleborough; and whilst Ann was there, at Letty’s, he frequently went in and dined with them. Every day tended to present the excellence of his heart and the clear solidity of his mind more attractively to the whole Woodburn family. Ann only was held back from the goal of her earthly happiness by the cloud that lay on her most beloved ones.