wedding dress for Ethelind, but her son insisted on her wearing the
plain white muslin she had herself prepared.

A union founded on such a basis, could not fail to bring as much real
happiness as mortals, subject to the vicissitudes of life, could
expect. Frederic Eardly passed many years of usefulness in his native
place, aided, in many of his good works, by his amiable wife. But
though blessed with many earthly comforts, they were not without their
trials, they had a promising family, but two or three were early
recalled; and in proportion to their affection for these interesting
children, was their grief at the severed links in the chain of earthly
love. The mother, perhaps, felt more keenly than the father, but both
knew they were blessings only lent, and they bowed submissively.

Beatrice was not heard of for some time, though Ethelind wrote
repeatedly, and named her second girl after her, and some eight or ten
years afterwards a letter came, written by Beatrice as she lay on her
death-bed, to be given to her little namesake on her seventeenth
birth-day. She left her all her jewels and a sum of money, but the
letter was the most valuable bequest, as it pointed out the errors
into which she had fallen, and their sad results. She had, it would
seem, accompanied the friend abroad to whose marriage she had gone,
and had once more marred her own prospects of happiness by her folly,
and once more had she injured the peace of others. Farther she might
have gone on, had she not sickened with the small-pox, of a most
virulent kind; she ultimately recovered; but her transcendent beauty
was gone, and she had now time to reflect on the past. Her affliction
was most salutary, and worked a thorough reformation, which, had her
life been spared, would have shown itself in her conduct.