And Edith? All this while of chances and changes how is the time passing with her? See for yourself reader! Follow me gently into that well-known parlor of her mother’s dwelling. There she sits, the beautiful one! as light, as graceful, and still more lovely than when we saw her last; for we now behold her a thinking, refined, intellectual woman, with all her youthful, beaming charms, heightened into exquisite and womanly perfection. She is leaning, rather pensively, on the arm of the chair, drawn to the opened and perfume draped window, with her soft, dimpled hand holding in its rose-colored palm the rounded chin; the neat, little foot patting unconsciously the floor—her eyes bent on the flowers of her garden, seeing them in all their floating hues, like the mingled colors of a kaleidoscope, before her musing gaze. Her guitar leans against her knee, and the other hand is straying across the strings, awaking its echoes like the notes of an Eolian harp.

“Mother, I will go with cousin Frank and Sallie to Old Point. They are so anxious I should do so.”

“And suppose, Edith, Mr. Lennard arrives in your absence, what shall I tell him?” said Mrs. Morton, with a smile.

“Mother, you must forgive my first breach of confidence, for I was too unhappy, too wounded in my pride and love to speak of what I am going to tell you,” said Edith, her listless attitude now abandoned for one of energy, and the usual musical tones were rapid and more harsh—“yes, mother, my very first. Mr. Lennard will be at Old Point soon after I reach there. Yesterday I received a letter from him, and such a letter!” Edith’s voice faltered, but indignantly driving back the tears which were filling her eyes, she drew from her pocket a letter, and handing it to her mother, told her to read it. Whilst Mrs. Morton arranged her glasses, Edith sunk back into the chair with a slight frown and heightened color, and one could see from the clenched hand how determined she was to overcome the agitation which was increasing by her disclosures.

Mrs. Morton folded the letter slowly, and gave it back to Edith.

“He may be as he says, Edith, too unwell and too weak to write as he wishes.”

“Unwell!” said Edith indignantly; “were I dying I would not have written such a letter to him. Yes, I will go to Old Point, and show Mr. Lennard that I can resign him, and still live: I am determined he shall never triumph in the thought, that I, a foolish girl, would weep, and pine away, because he has forgotten me,”—here the tears ran freely from her beautiful eyes; and, with her voice broken by sobs, she continued—as she knelt before her mother, burying her tear-stained face in her lap—“and then, dear mother, I will be all your own Edith again: no parting from you, for I will never, never love any one, or believe in their love as I have done.”

Mrs. Morton suffered her to weep, knowing it was the best for that poor, grieved heart thus to find vent from its bitterness; but she showed her sympathy in her child’s first grief by her loving words, and by softly smoothing the ringlets on her hot, throbbing brow, and by many a tender kiss. And Edith, with her head resting on her mother’s lap, sat on the floor as of old, when a little child she would listen to stories from her parent; and Mrs. Morton, very judiciously, sought to impress upon poor Edith, the instability of all things earthly, and begged her to lay her griefs, in prayer, at the feet of that kind Father, who is never tired of inviting the sorrowing and weary to lay their burthens upon him, exhorting her to pray for strength, and firm faith, so as to say from her heart—“Though thou slayest me, yet will I trust in Thee!”

Some days were passed in preparation for her trip; and, at the appointed time, she accompanied her cousin Frank and his wife. The Hygeia Hotel was crowded with fashionables and invalids from every section of the Union, and our party found they had arrived in excellent time for the fancy ball, to take place the ensuing week. Edith was only eighteen; and though really grieved at Charles’ cold letter, and supposed faithlessness, yet her indignation and wounded pride made her still bear up against her sorrow, at the thought of rupturing her engagement with Lennard—whom she really loved, with all the warmth of first and trusting love, notwithstanding this rude shock it had received. But she was hopeful and buoyant in disposition, and consoled herself with the thought—as she looked into the mirror, and saw there her loveliness—that she yet would win him back to love her still more deeply: and pleased was she, very naturally, at the universal admiration she excited among the gentlemen; looking forward, too, to her first ball—thinking Charles Lennard would then see her in a dress, on which she bent all her taste to render it bewitching—that he would feel proud to be the husband-elect of one to whom so many eyes turned in ecstasy at her exquisite beauty. All these, and many more thoughts of a like nature, kept her from becoming a prey to her heart sickness, and she was really as lively and gay as she intended appearing in his eyes. I hope no one will deem my heroine heartless, because she was not as unhappy is she first expected to have been. No, very far was Edith Morton from that: on the contrary, she possessed warm and ardent feelings, but—as I said before—she was hopeful and confident—as what really beautiful woman is not?—in the power of her attractions.

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