Will you not glad your mother's heart and let me have the comfort of beholding you once more my own cheerful, happy Emmeline?" "I will try," murmured Emmeline, struggling to smile; but oh, it was so unlike herself, so lustreless and faint, that Mrs. Hamilton hastily turned away to hide emotion.

Oh, bid me not despond; and yet and yet, because he is poor, oh, would you, can you condemn me to despair?" "Emmeline, Emmeline, do not wring my heart by these cruel words," replied Mrs. Hamilton, in a tone of such deep distress, that Emmeline's imploring glance sunk before it, and feeling there was indeed no hope, her weakened frame shook with the effort to restrain the bursting tears.

Often had her mother inwardly trembled when she thought of such a sentiment influencing her Emmeline, and now the dreaded moment had come.

"Do not look so anxious, my own Emmeline," Mrs. Hamilton said fondly, as she met her daughter's glance fixed somewhat anxiously on her little Minnie, for so she was generally called, to distinguish her from Lady St. Eval's Mary.

It was an interesting group assembled in the old parish church on the day that united our favourite Emmeline with her long-beloved Arthur, but it was far from being a day of unmingled gladness.