ition prevented her going out, it was he alone who was permitted
to cheer the gloomy solitude to which she was obliged to confine
herself. Did she ever think of poor Charlotte?--if she did, my dear
Miss, it was only to laugh at the poor girl's want of spirit in
consenting to be moped up in the country, while Montraville was enjoying
all the pleasures of a gay, dissipated city. When she heard of his
marriage, she smiling said, so there's an end of Madam Charlotte's
hopes. I wonder who will take her now, or what will become of the little
affected prude?

But as you have lead to the subject, I think we may as well return to
the distressed Charlotte, and not, like the unfeeling Mrs. Crayton, shut
our hearts to the call of humanity.

CHAPTER XXIX.

WE GO FORWARD AGAIN.

THE strength of Charlotte's constitution combatted against her disorder,
and she began slowly to recover, though she still laboured under a
violent depression of spirits: how must that depression be encreased,
when, upon examining her little store, she found herself reduced to
one solitary guinea, and that during her illness the attendance of an
apothecary and nurse, together with many other unavoidable expences,
had involved her in debt, from which she saw no method of extricating
herself. As to the faint hope which she had entertained of hearing from
and being relieved by her parents; it now entirely forsook her, for
it was above four months since her letter was dispatched, and she had
received no answer: she therefore imagined that her conduct had either
entirely alienated their affection from her, or broken their hearts, and
she must never more hope to receive their blessing.

Never did any human being wish for death with greater fervency or
with juster cause; yet she had too just a sense of the duties of the
Christian religion to attempt to put a period to her own existence. "I
have but to be patient a little longer," she would cry, "and nature,
fatigued and fainting, will throw off this heavy load of mortality, and
I shall be released from all my sufferings."

It was one cold stormy day in the latter end of December, as Charlotte
sat by a handful of fire, the low state of her finances not allowing her
to replenish her stock of fuel, and prudence teaching her to be careful
of what she had, when she was surprised by the entrance of a farmer's
wife, who, without much ceremony, seated herself, and began this curious
harangue.

"I'm come to se