the thought
of her had arrested Caroline on the brink of ruin, it was His work, and
Him alone she praised. She looked on the glowing countenance of her
daughter; she marked the modest gentleness of her demeanour, the
retiring dignity with which she checked the effusions of her own fond
affection, and received the attentions of her devoted lover, and she
felt sure those few moments of solitude had been passed in thanksgiving
and prayer to Him who had pardoned the errors of the past, and granted
such unlooked-for joy. And she guessed aright, for the mind of Caroline
had not been entirely engrossed by the bright and glowing visions which
anticipation in such a moment of our lives is apt to place before us.
Her thoughts during the last year had been secretly under the guidance
of the most rigid self-control, and thus permitted her to raise them
from the happiness of earth to blessedness yet more exalted. Oh! who can
say that religion is the heavy chain that fetters us to gloom and
everlasting sadness; that in chastening the pleasures of earth, it
offers no substantial good in return? True piety, open the heart by its
sweet, refreshing influence, causes us to enjoy every earthly blessing
with a zest the heart in which the love of God is not an inmate will
seek in vain to know. It is piety that strengthens, purifies affection.
Piety, that looks on happiness vouch us here, as harbingers of a state
where felicity will be eternal. Piety that, in lifting up the grateful
soul to God, heightens our joys, and renders that pure and lasting
which would otherwise be evanescent and fleeting. Piety, whose soft and
mildly-burning torch continues to enlighten life, long, long after the
lustre of worldly pleasures has passed away. It was this blessed
feeling, kindled in earliest infancy by the fostering hand of parental
love, which now characterised and composed every emotion of Caroline's
swelling bosom, which bade her feel that this indeed was happiness. With
blushing modesty she received the eagerly-offered congratulations of her
affectionate family; the delighted embrace which Percy in the enthusiasm
of his joy found himself compelled to give her.

"Now, indeed, may I hope the past will never again cross my mind to
torment me," he whispered to his sister, and wrung St. Eval's hand with
a violence that forced that young man laughingly to cry for mercy. There
had been a shade of unusual gloom shrouding the open countenance and
usually fr