Perhaps there was a little selfishness in the apparent attachment thus shown, for, as the family of Lord Falkland was musical, Mary Evelyn formed a most useful and agreeable addition to their circle. The visit which her father was induced to allow her to make was greatly prolonged; it being represented to him that it was a pity to neglect so good an opportunity of learning of Pietro, the fashionable master, whose pupil she accordingly became.

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"It was," continues Evelyn, "the end of February before I could prevail with my lady to part with her she expressed her wish to come home, being tired of the vain and empty conversation of the town, the theatres, the Court, and trifling visits, which consumed so much precious time, and made her sometimes miss of that regular course of piety that gave her the greatest satisfaction. She was weary of this life, and I think went not thrice to Court all this time, except when her mother or I carried her. She did not affect showing herself; she knew the Court well, and passed one summer in it at Windsor, with Lady Tuke, one of the Queen's women of the bed-chamber, a most virtuous relation of hers; she was not fond of that glittering scene, now become abominably licentious, though there was a design of Lady Rochester and Lady Clarendon to have made her a maid of honour to the Queen as soon as there was a vacancy. But this she did not set her heart upon, nor indeed on

anything so much as the service of God, a quiet and regular life, and how she might improve herself in the most necessary accomplishments, and to which she was arrived at so great a measure."

Happy would it have been for the unfortunate parents, had their daughter returned to them before her mind and body had become harassed and fatigued with this gaiety, of which she both disapproved and had striven to get rid of.

Her friend, Lady Falkland, just before parting with her, took her to pay one of those frivolous visits of no importance, which at all periods are the resource of idle, fashionable society.

After they had been a good while in the house, their hostess, with unfeeling thoughtlessness, merely probably wanting a theme of discourse, told them she had a servant lying sick of the small pox.

Mary Evelyn was instantly seized with that sort of horror which so often occasions a fatal result, and the impression was increased when she heard that the servant died the next day.

She returned to her father's house only to die :the terrible disease showed itself too clearly; and at once it was evident that there was no hope. "Thus," exclaims her bereaved father, "lived, died, and was buried, the joy of my life, and ornament of her sex, and of my poor family."

Since the death of his charming and interesting friend, Mrs. Godolphin, poor Evelyn seems never

to have had so sad a loss, and he laments it with the deepest grief. Her papers showed the learning and refinement of her mind, and he was surprised to find how, even beyond his expectations, she had profited by her studies; but, he adds, "she was a little miracle while she lived, and so she died!"

This is the brief history of an amiable creature, who lived in an age when there were few like her, and which produced more examples of high talent, beauty, and grace perverted, than of modest merit and unpretending piety.