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pression of gaiety which was distant-ah! how distant-from his heart; "recover? Undoubtedly, my dear girl. What should put it into your whimsical brain to think otherwise? Have we not come hither on purpose that your health may be restored?"

"Many come to this country," whispered the poor invalid, "and come for health, who never find it, and never return home."

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Very different cases from yours, Mary; you may rely upon it that it is so. Did not the physicians say that it only wanted this little change to set you up again completely?"

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They do not always speak the truth, father," rejoined the anxious sufferer, still in a low tone of earnest solicitude, and never once letting drop her eyes from her father's countenance. He shrank for a moment beneath their piercing, touching, agonized gaze; but he rallied.

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Recover, Mary?" he repeated; "why, are you not already on the high road to recovery? You are much stronger now than when we came hither, only a week ago. I am sure you must know this yourself; and it is very evident to all besides."

"I do feel better, father; but, you know, I am very, very weak. A little exertion-how it fatigues me! I shall never be strong again, I fear;" and suffering her eyes to droop, she laid her burning flushed brow on her nerveless hand, and tears fell fast upon the letter which lay open before her.

"You are nervous to-day, my dear child," said

Mr. Duncan, soothingly. "You must not let such thoughts distress you. There is no foundation for your fears, if-if we are but careful; but these painful fancies will throw you back again. You know we are not to expect any very rapid amendment; we must have patience. Your brother writes as much to you. I am sure he would be quite surprised to see you now. I could be very angry with him, though, for writing so nonsensically about his religious fancies. I think you had better let me have that letter, and the book."

“Oh no, no, father," Mary replied, rousing herself, and hastily brushing away her tears; "it is very foolish of me, I know. I will not behave so again, if I can help it. But it is not Leonard's letter exactly that has made me dull. No, I must keep his letter, though it is an odd one, as I said. But, father," she added, and then suddenly paused. "Yes, dear Mary."

"I have been thinking, not now particularly, but very often since my illness, and sometimes before-I have thought that if I were more like my mother, as she was

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“You are like her, dear girl, in all her admirable qualities," said her father.

"No, no, not in religion; if I were but more like her in that."

"It was the only thing in which there was ever the slightest shade of difference between us, Mary. I do not wish you to imbibe the notions she held."

"And yet it made her happy at the very last, father," rejoined the anxious invalid; "and I have sometimes thought that if I should die

Mr. Duncan again interrupted his daughter with assurances of her speedy recovery. "You are lowspirited to-day, Mary, and you think a great deal too much of your slight-comparatively slight— indisposition. Depend upon it, we shall soon return home with quite another story to tell. Cheer up, dearest."

Then he proposed a drive in the warm sunshine; and a few minutes afterwards a carriage waited their bidding, and I was conveyed to the invalid's room.

CHAPTER XII.

THE INVALID.

FOR a few weeks it seemed as though the hopes which were either indulged or expressed, of the recovery of Mary Duncan, were not destitute of foundation. As some degree of strength returned, her spirits rose more than proportionately high, and she gradually dismissed from her mind the apprehensions which had caused her alarm.

The baths of

were gay with visitors, by whom resort was had to many modes of dissipation; in these, as she was able, the invalid was urged to

indulge, as the surest mode of banishing any uncomfortable thoughts which would impede rapid and effectual restoration. Thus it came to pass that the salutary impressions made by her brother Leonard's letter were effaced, and I was treated with comparative neglect.

Comparative neglect, I say; for there were times when Mary, in the retirement and solitude of her room, placed me before her, and seemed half-desirous of opening with me a more familiar intercourse; but once and again she laid me aside with the plea, too familiar, alas! in my experience, "Go thy way for this time: when I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee.”

Then, when at other times she might have listened to my remonstrances, and heeded my warnings of approaching danger, and responded to the invitations which I am commissioned to announce to souls thirsting and panting for satisfaction and reposethen was she exposed to the allurements of pleasure placed before her by her parent, who dreaded, more and more, the influence I should exercise over her

soul.

"You want something to amuse you, Mary," said he, one evening when she had expressed her wish to remain at home, instead of accompanying him to a party for which they were engaged. His quick, anxious eye had detected my presence on the sofa on which his daughter reclined. "If you will not venture into company, I will stay with you, and

read to you." And then he brought forward some "last new novel," and I was for that time also thrust aside the momentous verities of eternity being disregarded and contemned for the passing frivolities of a day; and for one whose days the unhappy reader in his heart believed to be numbered and drawing fast-fast-to a close, while yet, all the while, he dared to inspire her with false expectations of lengthened life and re-animated vigour.

One morning a visitor was announced, who entered the room in which my owner was seated alone. The poor patient was, or appeared to be, unusually cheerful. Her malady seemed to have yielded more decidedly to the efforts which were made to arrest its progress: she felt only weakness, and this-this, too, might be removed, she thought.

Mary Duncan uttered an exclamation of surprise, not unmixed with pleasure, when her visitor entered. “This is, indeed, unexpected," she said, when the first greetings were over. "I did not expect to meet Lady D in a place so gay as this." "Like you, Mary," the visitor replied, speaking somewhat sadly, “I am travelling in search—a vain search, I believe-of health. My child is ill-" "Not little Margaret ?" said Mary.

"Yes, my little Margaret; God has been pleased to lay this burden on me. There is but faint hope of her recovery; but such hope as there is we must not throw away, and our physician has sent us hither."

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