Mr. Beresford looked up: his face was pale; his eyes dim with tears; yet he seemed impelled with the like enthusiasm he fell on his knees, and raised his clasped hands in pious aspiration.-" God, omnipotent and holy !" he ejaculated; "Thou, who art the life, the light, and the truth, sanctify us, and make clean our hearts within us! Teach us the knowledge of ourselves; teach us to feel our own dependence, and Thy all-saving mercy and whether it be in prosperity or adversity-in the season of health, or in the visitation of sickness-in the green spring of youth, or in the hoar-frost of age, teach us to rest our hopes upon Thee!"

"Amen!" pronounced Elizabeth; and she cast on her father, such a look of satisfaction and peace, such a heart-beam of gratitude and thankfulness, that it seemed to soothe every murmur, and still every discordant feeling within him.

66

Well, but, my gentle cousin," asked

Sydney,

Sydney, breaking the long-long pause, and anxious to change the theme, "am I to secure the Tile-house? and are you content to become the neighbour of my venerated friend admiral Leslie ?"

Elizabeth looked to her father; it was a beseeching look, and it conveyed her wishes.

"Speak your thoughts aloud, Lizzy," said Mr. Beresford.

compass of

not grant ?"

"What, within the

my means, can you ask, and I

"I have heard much of the salubrity of Devonshire," murmured Elizabeth. " Ah, my dear father, I would strive hard for health, for my heart clings strongly to this world. I hope it be not sinful—” and she spoke in all the artlessness of innocence-" but affection for my new-found kinsman surely strengthens every tie. My dear father, I would swallow the bitterest draught I would submit to the heaviest privation-I would labour late and early, to obtain health. Sure, it cannot be sinful-"

ful-" and her fair cheek and her dark eye beamed with a radiant flush" no, no, it cannot be sinful; for life is the gift of God; and his gifts are too precious, lightly to be yielded up."

Such was the reasoning of the young Elizabeth: she traced not the birth of earthly passion in the new train of her feelings.

"I will write by this night's post," said Sydney, thrilling in the sweet and pleasurable sensations of gratitude and inte

rest.

66

Ay, do so," exclaimed Mr. Beresford, "and we will journey into Devonshire together."

CHAP.

CHAP. XI.

A FEW days given to preparation, and the love of life became stronger in the breast of Elizabeth Beresford. Her feelings, by nature enthusiastic, had taken a new colour; her mind, heretofore enwrapt in heavenly contemplation, became lured to earth by a strong and a delightful influence. The presence of her cousin opened a new source of interest and amusement: it stimulated to exertion; and in giving life fresh value, she mentally regained that hold upon it, which, to every observant eye, she had seemed on the point of resigning. Since her removal from her native town, by choice she had lived in utter seclusion; shrinking from promiscuous intercourse, her spirits had become morbid from local causes, rather than constitutional infirmity :-how then did the

subtle

subtle poison of prepossession steal into her feelings,-how copiously did she drink of that spring, which, if good, or if evil, colours the brief episode of woman's life. If, in the eyes of her father, Sydney Beresford appeared worthy, and high-spirited, and amiable, far higher did he rise in the eyes and in the estimation of Elizabeth: for never, in her brightest day-dream, had she pictured any thing so heroic, so noble, so captivating, as her new-found cousin. His total forgetfulness of the past-his generous forgiveness of injury-all combined to stamp him, rarer and brighter, than the beau ideal, which a warm and heated fancy had ever conjured.

As invariably is the case, the charm of daily intercourse served to strengthen the charm of prepossession; and joyfully did Elizabeth exchange the solitude under which she had so long languished, for a society the most endearing she had ever known; nor did she for an instant suspect her own enthralment, for her every artless indication