een, acting under an impression,
that we shall ultimately succeed; and although I can hold out to your
ladyship but very slender hopes, if any, still I would say, do not
despair."

Lady Gourlay was about forty-eight, and although sorrow, and the bitter
calamity with which the reader is already acquainted, had left their
severe traces upon her constitution and features, still she was a woman
on whom no one could look without deep I interest and sympathy. Even
at that age, her fine form and extraordinary beauty bore up in a most
surprising manner against her sufferings. Her figure was tall--its
proportions admirable; and her beauty, faded it is true, still made the
spectator feel, with a kind of wonder, what it must have been when she
was in the prime of youth and untouched by affliction. She possessed
that sober elegance of manner that was in melancholy accordance with her
fate; and evinced in every movement a natural dignity that excited more
than ordinary respect and sympathy for her character and the sorrows
she had suffered. Her face was oval, and had been always of that healthy
paleness than which, when associated with symmetry and expression--as
was the case with her--there is nothing more lovely among women. Her
eyes, which were a dark brown, had lost, it is true, much of the lustre
and sparkle of early life; but this was succeeded by a mild and mellow
light to which an abiding sorrow had imparted an expression that was
full of melancholy beauty.

For many years past, indeed, ever since the disappearance of her only
child, she had led a secluded life, and devoted herself to the Christian
virtues of charity and benevolence; but in such a way as to avoid
anything like ostentatious display. Still, such is the structure of
society, that it is impossible to carry the virtues for which she
was remarkable to any practical extent, without the world by degrees
becoming cognizant of the secret. The very recipients themselves, in the
fulness of their heart, will commit a grateful breach of confidence with
which it is impossible to quarrel.

Consoled, as far as any consolation could reach her, by the
consciousness of doing good, as well as by a strong sense of religion,
she led a life which we regret so few in her social position are
disposed to imitate. For many years before the period at which our
narrative commences, she had given up all hope of ever recovering her
child, if indeed he was alive. Whether he had perished