e had no
surname of her own. Emily had tried to find Nan Grant, in order to learn
from her something of Gertrude's early history; but Nan had left her old
habitation, and for years nothing had been heard of her.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHANGES.

It was the twilight of a sultry September day, and, wearied by excessive
heat, Emily sat on the front piazza of her father's house, inhaling a
delicious and refreshing breeze. The western sky was still streaked with
brilliant lines of red, the lingering effects of a gorgeous sunset,
while the moon, now nearly at the full, and triumphing in the close of
day and the commencement of her nightly reign, cast her full beams upon
Emily's white dress, and gave to the beautiful hand and arm, which,
escaping from the draperied sleeve, rested on the side of her rustic
arm-chair, the semblance of polished marble. Ten years had passed since
Emily was introduced to the reader; and yet, so slight were the changes
wrought by time, that she looked little older than on her first meeting
Gertrude in Mr. Arnold's church.

She had even then experienced much of the sorrows of life, and learned
how to distil from the bitter dregs of suffering a balm for every pain.
Even then, that experience, and the blessed knowledge she had gained
from it, had both stamped themselves upon her countenance; therefore,
time had little power upon her; as she was then so was she now; lovely
in her outward appearance, and still more lovely in heart and life.
Still a close observer might perceive in her a greater degree of
buoyancy of spirit, keenness of interest in what was going on about her,
and evident enjoyment of life, and this was due, as Emily acknowledged,
to her recent close companionship with one to whom she was bound by the
warmest affection, and who, by her sympathy, her constant devotion, her
natural appreciation of the entertaining and the ludicrous, and the
beautiful and true, and her unsparing efforts to bring her much-loved
friend into communion with everything she herself enjoyed, had called
into play faculties which blindness had rendered almost dormant, and
become, what Uncle True bade her be, eyes to her benefactor.

On the present occasion, as Emily sat alone, her thoughts were sad. She
held her head a little on one side, in a listening attitude, and, as
often as she heard the sound of the gate swinging in the breeze, she
would start, while a look of anxiety, and even pain, would cross her
featu