enthusiastic, but they stayed not the hand of charity, nor could they
check pity's tear. If her eye flashed as she gazed on the ancient
device of her family, reposing on its time worn pedestal, it could melt
to the tale of the houseless wanderer, and sympathise with the sorrows
of the fatherless.




Chapter II.

The Album.



"Oh that the desert were my dwelling place,
With one fair spirit for my minister;
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her."


A cheerful party were met in the drawing room of Delme. Clarendon Gage,
a neighbouring land proprietor, to whom Emily had for a twelvemonth been
betrothed, had the night previous returned from a continental tour. In
consequence, Emily looked especially radiant, Delme much pleased, and
Clarendon superlatively happy. Nor must we pass over Mrs. Glenallan,
Miss Delme's worthy aunt, who had supplied the place of a mother to
Emily, and who now sat in her accustomed chair, with an almost sunny
brow, quietly pursuing her monotonous tambouring. At times she turned to
admire her niece, who occasionally walked to the glass window, to caress