your wishes?" said Mary,
endeavoring to speak lightly, but betraying deeper feeling by the slight
tremor in her voice, and the quick blush mantling in her cheek.

"Love you less!" exclaimed Colonel Percy warmly--"my love had been
little worthy of your acceptance, dearest, had it been lessened by
seeing that your principles were paramount even to your affections.
Happy would it be for all your sex, Mary, did they recognize as the only
test of a true and noble love, that it increases with the increase of
esteem, and finds more pleasure in the excellence of its object than in
its own selfish triumphs."

Ere the winter of 1815 had set in, Mary's rounded form and blooming
cheek relieved all Mr. Sinclair's apprehension of her consumptive
tendencies, and proved that her love was indeed, as he had said, "a part
of her life."

CHAPTER XIV.

The New-Year's day--the day after which the year is no longer new--is
come and gone; and while sitting here to record its events before I
sleep, I look back at it with pleasure, chastened by such thoughts as
the young seldom have. I believe of all such eras the aged may say as
the poet says of his birthday:

"What a different sound
That word had in my younger years!
And every time the chain comes round,
Less and less bright the link appears."

To all, these eras mark their progress on the journey of life; but to
the young they are bright with the promise of a happier future; the
aged, they direct to the grave of the buried past, and they read on them
the inscription so often found on the Roman monumental stones, "Siste,
Viator." Travellers are we from time to eternity, and it is well that we
should meet with these imperative calls to stand and consider. Cheered
by the Christian's hope, we can stand; we can look steadily on the past,
count the lengthening line of these memorials of our dead years, and
feel that but few more probably lie between us and the river of death,
yet, strong in the might of Death's great Conqueror, "bate no jot of
heart or hope."

These are grave though not sad thoughts; too grave to mingle readily
with the record of mirthful scenes, howsoever innocent may have been the
mirth. I must, therefore, lay aside my pen, and reserve the description
of our New-Year for tomorrow.

Our New-Year opened with a cold and cloudless morning, and our party met
at breakfast with faces as bright as the sun. Gifts were exchanged
between the pa