"Not so, my friend, not so, though memory will take many opportunities to recall to mind scenes of happiness and moments of softness, to come perhaps no more; still, in the novelty of new scenes and new faces, in the bustling of travelling, and, above all, in the path of ardent exertion, grief lies, if unsubdued, passively superseded by other feelings. The scenes which memory will at times recall have not the influence of locality and familiar faces to invest them with their wonted poignancy. Absence has its charms when the heart is stricken with grief."

66

Oh, it must have," said Augustus, involuntarily pacing the room. "When away,

I shall not always dwell on her face, her voice, her very step; all of which now dwell constantly in my mind. There are tones which, once heard, cannot be effaced by any others; such are those I heard

"When away.

ys dwell on her face, her step; all of which now in my mind. There are Are heard, cannot be effaced such are those I heard

219

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when Alice Lemington refused my offer of never-dying love. Oh! Alphonzo, I have nearly broken my heart in the struggle of pretending to indifference I never can feel. I fear I have behaved without honour towards Mary Grey; I will tell her so; I will entreat her forgiveness, and then, Alphonzo, I am ready to follow you, only, if possible, say not we cannot forget.'

My opinion may not be that of the rest of mankind," replied Alphonzo, "or woe for the inconstancy of a widower's crape; how many men marry again when the heart is yet full of the image of her shrouded in the cold bosom of earth."

"Such a man never loved Alice Lemington," said the infatuated Augustus.

"Such a man never loved Clara Grey," responded Alphonzo.

Each of the young men thought his

opinion the best. But who can dare say we

cannot forget yet the very effort of for

:

we

getfulness is in itself a deep fund of recollection, the why and wherefore must forget is the keenest mental agony imaginable. Loved images will then intrude, familiar faces smiling half painfully, half sweetly; scenes of home then will recur to mind, and yet absence will sometimes, as young Cunnington believed, teach us to forget. Pictures of happiness, not to be grasped by us, gradually appear too distant, too improbable, too chimerical, to be realized; we can smile faintly at recollections which once cost us a gush of sad tears, and thus at length we have learned to forget.