e, and tears stole slowly from those mild eyes,
which for herself so seldom wept; while engrossed in her own
reflections, she heard not the soft and careful opening of her door, she
knew not that the beloved object of those tears had entered her room,
and was kneeling beside her.

"Mother!" murmured Caroline, in a voice tremulous and weak with emotion
equal to her own. Mrs. Hamilton started, and her lip quivered with the
effort she made to smile her greeting. "Mother, my own mother, forgive
my intrusion; I thought not to have found you thus. Oh, deem me not
failing in that deep reverence your goodness, your devotedness, have
taught me to feel for you; if my love would bid me ask you why you weep,
may I not share your sorrow, mother?"

"These are but selfish tears, my own; selfish, for they fall only when I
think that to-morrow bears my Caroline away, and leaves her mother's
heart for a time so lone and sad, that it will not even think of the
happiness I so fondly trust will be hers, in becoming the bride of him
she loves. Forgive me, my own Caroline; I had no right to weep and call
for these dear signs of sympathy at such a time."

Silently and tearfully Caroline clung to her mother, and repeatedly
pressed her hand to her lips.

"And why are you not at rest, my child? you will have but few brief
hours for sleep, scarcely sufficient to recall the truant rose to these
pale cheeks, and the lustre to this suddenly dimmed eye, my Caroline;"
and the mother passed her hand caressingly over her brow, and parted the
luxuriant hair that, loosened from the confining wreath of wild flowers
which had so lately adorned it, hung carelessly around her. She looked
long and wistfully on that young bright face.

"You ask me why I am not at rest; oh, I could not, I felt I could not
part from you, without imploring your forgiveness for all the past;
without feeling that it was indeed pardoned. Never, never before has my
conduct appeared in such true colours: dark, even to blackness, when
contrasted with yours. Your blessing is my own, it will be mine
to-morrow; but, oh, it will not be hallowed to my heart, did I not
confess that I was--that I am unworthy of all your fondness, mother, and
implore you to forgive the pain I have so often and so wantonly
inflicted upon you. Oh, you know not how bitterly, how reproachfully, my
faults and errors rushed back to my mind, as I sat and thought this was
the last night that Caroline Hamilton would