of earth to blessedness yet more exalted.  Oh! who can say that religion is the heavy chain that fetters us to gloom and everlasting sadness; that in chastening the pleasures of earth, it offers no substantial good in return?  True piety, open the heart by its sweet, refreshing influence, causes us to enjoy every earthly blessing with a zest the heart in which the love of God is not an inmate will seek in vain to know.  It is piety that strengthens, purifies affection.  Piety, that looks on happiness vouch us here, as harbingers of a state where felicity will be eternal.  Piety that, in lifting up the grateful soul to God, heightens our joys, and renders that pure and lasting which would otherwise be evanescent and fleeting.  Piety, whose soft and mildly-burning torch continues to enlighten life, long, long after the lustre of worldly pleasures has passed away.  It was this blessed feeling, kindled in earliest infancy by the fostering hand of parental love, which now characterised and composed every emotion of Caroline’s swelling bosom, which bade her feel that this indeed was happiness.  With blushing modesty she received the eagerly-offered congratulations of her affectionate family; the delighted embrace which Percy in the enthusiasm of his joy found himself compelled to give her.

“Now, indeed, may I hope the past will never again cross my mind to torment me,” he whispered to his sister, and wrung St. Eval’s hand with a violence that forced that young man laughingly to cry for mercy.  There had been a shade of unusual gloom shrouding the open countenance and usually frank demeanour of Percy since his return from Oxford, for which his parents and sisters could not account, but as he seemed to shrink from all observation on the subject, they did not ask the cause; but this unexpected happiness seemed to make him for a few following days as usual the gayest, merriest member of his amiable family.

Often in these days of happiness did Caroline think on the qualities which Lady Gertrude had once said should adorn the wife of her brother.  Faults he could pardon, if they were redeemed by affection, and ingenuousness unsullied by the slightest artifice.  Affection she well knew she possessed; but she also knew that, to be as unreserved as would form the happiness of her husband, she must effectually banish that pride, which she knew still lurked within.  Often would she converse on these things when alone with her mother, and implore her advice as to the best method of securing not only the love but the esteem of St. Eval.  “Gertrude was quite right in the estimate of her brother’s character,” Mrs. Hamilton would at such times observe, her fond heart fully repaid for past anxiety and disappointment by this confidence in her child; “and so too are you, dearest, in your idea that not the faintest sign of pride must mark your intercourse with him.  Perhaps he is more reserved than proud; indeed, in his case, I cannot call it pride, but it is that kind of reserve