surprise of their mutual friends, when the wife of Mr
Heneage Devereux accompanied her husband in one of his now frequent
visits to the Hall, and was received by Mr Devereux as an invited guest!

Cousin Heneage had promoted this lady from the superintendence of his
kitchen to that of his family, and the honours of a lawful wife, but he
did not deem it requisite to notify the forming of so respectable a
connection to the then surviving parents of Mr Devereux; neither did the
birth of some half-score promising babes, with whom he was presented in
yearly succession, form part of the formal communications addressed at
stated periods to his kinsman at the Hall. And when he occasionally
presented himself in person, no allusion was ever made on either side to
the lady or her progeny, till the time I mentioned, about three years
preceding the death of my venerable friend. Imagine, then, the
consternation of Mrs Eleanor, when her brother, with an abruptness of
manner very different from his usual address, requested her to prepare
herself for the reception of Mrs Heneage Devereux, who, with her husband
and three elder children, a son and two daughters, between the ages of
fifteen and one-and-twenty, would arrive the day following, to make
some stay at the Hall. It so happened that I went over to pay a visit to
my friends on the morning of this strange communication, and was ushered
into Mrs Eleanor's morning room, just as her brother left it, passing me
with a hurried excuse, and in evident agitation. I found the sister
flushed, and trembling with surprise and pain; and it was in vain that
she endeavoured to welcome me with her usual serenity, and the kind
sweet smile that was wont to light up her benevolent countenance at
sight of those she loved and valued: when I took her hand with the
inquiring look of affectionate concern it was impossible not to feel at
the thought that any distressful circumstance should wound the heart of
that gentle and heavenly-minded creature, the tears gushed from her
eyes, and with a tremulous tone, she related to me the short and
peremptory communication just made to her by her brother.

"And such a brother!" she exclaimed, while her voice trembled with
emotion--"You knew him, Mr L----; you have known him from your
childhood; the best and kindest of human beings--one from whose lips no
living creature ever heard a harsh or an ungentle word. And to me, what
has he not been!--in what perfect love and