out, "Oh! it is bitter to feel that there are none left to love you."

"You cannot feel that, dear Grace," said Isabel, soothingly, "remember our kind aunt.”

"But we leave her to-morrow."

"Yes; but then we go to another uncle and aunt, who, I do not doubt, will be very kind to us."

"I did not speak of kindness; strangers may be kind to us, but they cannot love us, and my grief is that I shall be separated from all that have known and loved me.” And with somewhat of petulance in her manner, Grace raised her head from her cousin's shoulder, and withdrew herself from her supporting arm.

Isabel's face flushed, and an expression of wounded feeling passed over it. It was gone, however, in a moment— resentment to his child could not exist so near her uncle's grave and she drew Grace again to her side, as she asked, "Will you be so separated while I am with you?" "You did not say any thing of yourself," said Grace, evasively.

"What could I say that you did not already know, dear Grace? Have we not played together, and studied together, had the same dear friends, and shared the same joys and sorrows? and how can we help loving each other dearly?"

Isabel kissed her cousin fondly, and an expression of pleasure—almost a smile-stole over the features of Grace, as nestling closer to the bosom on which she rested, she said softly, "Promise always to love me so, dear Isabel, and I shall not mind going away."

"I do promise, dear Grace, to love you always as a true sister. And now let us go home, for Aunt Nancy's sake-she was so much afraid that this visit would make you ill. Come, dear Grace,-come, for my sake."

Grace was always subdued by tenderness, and though she turned her tearful eyes towards the burial-ground and uttered a reluctant "O Isabel !—must we go?" she offered no resistance to the gentle force which drew her from her seat and guided her towards her home.

Aunt Nancy,- -as Isabel and Grace had been accustomed to call Miss Elliot,-was the very embodiment of all kindly and gentle feelings. The years which had changed the soft, rich brown of her luxuriant hair into gray, and destroyed the fine proportions of her once slender and graceful form, had not dimmed the light of her clear blue eye, or stolen from her countenance its expression of contentment and benevolence, the impress of a mind grateful for her own lot, and desirous to extend the happiness she enjoyed to others. Her brother's death had been a deep affliction to her, yet scarcely, perhaps, harder to endure than the approaching parting with her nieces, the nurslings of her love, for whom, for more than twelve years, she had lived. Had the proposal to send them away been made by her brother during his life, she would have opposed it strongly, though aware that in their native state, Georgia, at that period, the requisites to the completion of an accomplished education could with difficulty be commanded. But the wishes of the dead were sacred in her eyes, and though the preparations for their departure, which had engaged her on the morning of their visit to the family burial-place, had kept vividly before her for hours the thought of her coming loneliness, no murmur had mingled with her regret. In the presence of Isabel and Grace, Miss Elliot had hitherto commanded herself to speak cheerfully, but many tears had fallen in secret at the thought of the cold and distant home to which she was about to consign them. For Grace especially had she sorrowed, not that her love for her was greater, but that she

thought her less able to bear even the shadow of unkind

ness.

Often had the stranger, surprised to hear one of

Never had Isabel been made to feel herself an alien to the hearts that had adopted her. entertained by Mr. Elliot, been the two lovely children sporting around him, call him uncle. That one word was the only visible distinction between the child born in his house and her who had found a shelter there from the desolation of her own home. Yet Mr. Elliot could not but feel a deeper love for the child of his own gentle wife, who smiled upon him with her soft eyes, and spoke to him in her very tones; and Miss Elliot regarded Grace with that peculiar tenderness felt by a mother for the youngest and feeblest of her offspring-a feeling engendered by that delicacy of constitution which caused the friends of Grace to experience, for years, the most trembling anxiety for her health, and even for her life. The same kind words were spoken to Isabel and to Grace, but when they were addressed to the latter, the voice assumed a tenderer tone-the same affectionate looks were turned on them, but they lingered longest upon Grace. Even their nurses, if there was a contest between the children for a toy, would say, "Gib 'em to your cousin, Miss Isabel-you won't fret your poor, sick cousin."

As Grace grew older, her constitution acquired vigor, and now all remains of its early feebleness seemed to have passed away; but the gentle tones and melting looks and yielding love had become a habit to those around her, and a necessity to her. Child of the sun, she was chilled by a passing shadow.

There was nothing in what we have described to check the young, warm impulses of Isabel. She had never been repulsed from the arms which embraced her cousin-cold unkindness had never forced a tear to her sunny eyes.

If she sometimes saw that her cousin was an object of greater consideration than herself, she also saw that it was for a reason which commended itself to her understanding, and won the assent of her generous heart—she was a sufferer. To this claim Isabel yielded without compulsion, and thus the same circumstances which made constant demonstrations of tenderness necessary to Grace, rendered Isabel independent of them. To her, love was like the air of Heaven-invisible, intangible, it yet encircled her soul, and she knew it, for in it was her life; but for Grace its depths must be stirred, and soft breezes must ever assure her of its presence. Alas! that those gentle breezes should ever become a wild and desolating tempest!

Miss Elliot had seen Isabel and Grace depart on the sad visit of the morning with reluctance, and when they proposed, in the afternoon, to walk to that part of the plantation on which the houses inhabited by the negroes on Mr. Elliot's estate were situated, she strenuously opposed it.

"I cannot consent to it, my dear children," she said, "you both need rest and quiet before you set out on your journey. Your head is burning now, Grace, and any farther agitation will make you ill. After you are gone, I will go around to all the negroes and bid them good-by for you."

She had drawn Grace to her bosom, and tears shone in the eyes of both at the thought of how soon that time would arrive.

"But Aunt Nancy," said Isabel, "we promised Maum Hagar to see her again before we went-if you do not like to have Grace go, I will go alone and tell her—”

"I think I ought to go," interposed Grace; "I may never see her again."

"Then, my darlings, I will go with you," said Aunt Nancy, whose kindly nature could not oppose itself to such

a reason.

The negro houses were about half a mile distant from their home, and they could just catch a glimpse of the setting sun through the rich foliage of surrounding trees when they reached them. The first in the group was that occupied by Maum Hagar, an aged woman who had been for several years quite blind, and by one of her grand-daughters who attended on her. The old woman was sitting in the warm May air before her door, clad in a clean though coarse wrapper and petticoat, and wearing on her head a handkerchief striped with blue—not disposed in the turbanlike fashion common to the younger servants, but knotted beneath the chin. Her eyes were open, and there was nothing in their appearance that indicated blindness. she heard approaching footsteps, she turned her face in the direction whence they came-a smile passed over her face a moment after, and she said with evident pleasure, “”Tis my good young ladies come to see ole Maum Hagar for de last time."

As

"For the last time before we go away, Maumer,” answered Grace, as she laid her small, white hand in the dark-colored one stretched out to her," but we are coming back again in four years, and I want to know what we shall bring for you."

"Ah, my missis! before four years go, Hagar hope to be where she'll neber hab no more want."

"Do you want any thing now, Maum Hagar?" asked Miss Elliot kindly.

"No, missis, not'in'-not'in' 'cept sometimes to go to my rest―so many handsome, rich, strong people, all gone before, and here ole wortless Hagar yet, cumb'rin' de ground."