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Rh waiting for her; stepping in, taking Rosilia on her lap, and placing Oriana by her side, with tears bedewing her eyes, she gave to Robert her parting injunctions; then waving her hand, she needed not words as a surety for the fulfilment of her wishes,—the tears of Robert were an attestation the most forcible she could receive. The coachman was ordered to drive to Mrs. Herbert's, Sunderland-place, such being the direction given by her friend, who recommended Mrs. Herbert as a person every way suited to take charge of her children.

Major Herbert, the husband of the lady in question, had by a death as awfully sudden and violent as it was premature, left a disconsolate widow and several youthful children to lament the loss of an affectionate relative, from whose army allowance their principal means of support had been furnished. The impression too by which the manner of his decease was attended, herself a witness, were such as to have produced in a frame of mind, naturally none of the weakest, a temporary subversion of intellect. Scarcely, however, had the arduous and absorbing duties devolved on the viduated mother, and she began to withdraw her mind from the contemplation of a tragic scene, when she was called to undergo fresh sorrow: she beheld, one by one, her orphan family fade and