MAGAZINE.

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

_Continued from page 346._

CHAPTER XXX.

Mrs. Hazleton was very consoling. She was with Mrs. Hastings two or
three times in the week, and poor Mrs. Hastings required a considerable
degree of consolation; for the arrest of her husband, coming so close
upon the bitter mortification of loss, and abatement of dignity, and at
the end of a long period of weak health, had made her seriously ill. She
now kept her bed the whole day long, and lay, making herself worse by
that sort of fretful anxiety which was constitutional with her as well
as with many other people. Mrs. Hazleton's visits were a great comfort
to her, and yet, strange to say, Emily almost always found her more
irritable after that lady had left her.

Poor Emily seemed to shine under the cloud of misfortune. Her character
came out and acted nobly in the midst of disasters. She was her mother's
nurse and constant attendant; she kept her father informed of every
thing that passed--not an opportunity was missed of sending him a
letter; and although she would have made any sacrifice to be with him in
prison, to comfort and support him in the peril and sorrow of his
situation, she was well satisfied that he had not taken her, when she
found the state into which her mother had fallen.

Often, after Mrs. Hazleton had sat for an hour or two with her sick
friend, she would come down and walk upon the terrace for a while with
Emily, and comfort her much in the same way that she did Mrs. Hastings.
She would tell her not to despond about her mother: that though she was
certainly very ill, and in a dangerous state, yet people had recovered
who had been quite as ill as she was. Then she would talk about lungs,
and nerves, and humors, and all kinds of painful and mortal diseases, as
if she had studied medicine all her life; and she did it, too, with a
quiet, dignified gravity which made it more impressive and alarming.
Then again, she would turn to the situation of Mr. Hastings, and wonder
what they would do with him. She would also bring every bit of news that
she could collect, regarding the case of Sir John Fenwick, especially
when the intelligence was painful and disastrous; but she hinted that,
perhaps, after all, they might not be able to prove any thing against
Mr. Hastings, and that even if they did--although the Government were
inclined to be severe--they might, perhaps, commute his sentence to
transportation for the coloni