"Farewell, Rupert--I do not say, farewell Emily; for I think this
letter, as well as its object, had better remain a secret between you
and me, and my brother--but I wish your future wife all earthly
happiness, and an end as full of hope as that which attends the
death-bed of your affectionate

"Grace Wallingford."

Oh! woman, woman, what are ye not, when duly protected and left to the
almost divine impulses of your generous natures! What may ye not become,
when rendered mercenary and envious by too close a contact with those
worldly interests which are never admitted to an ascendancy without
destroying all your moral beauty!



Chapter VII.



"And the beautiful, whose record
Is the verse that cannot die,
They too are gone, with their glorious bloom,
From the love of human eye."

Mrs. Hemans.


I cannot dwell minutely on the events of the week that succeeded. Grace
sunk daily, hourly; and the medical advice that was obtained, more as a