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266 object in whom so many fond hopes had centred, now borne away from their sight for ever! A deep swoon a second time entranced the senses of the hopeless mother.

But not to enter too minutely into the melancholy detail, the first days of mourning passed over, those afflicting moments to which, at length, succeeded the calm of resignation, and these sorrowing parents began to feel a solace as sharers in one common calamity, derived from sympathy and religion. The ingenuous look and artless smile that used to respond to theirs, would never delight them more; their child had fled beyond their mortal ken; but it had fled to those bright realms where its youthful spirit, in acquiring strength, would develope into saintly energy, and its form assume the seraphic lustre of the angel. Rapt in such tender, and as it were hallowed reflections, correspondent to the purity, the sweet innocence of their child, its exemption from, and perfect unconsciousness of sin, at the time of its dissolution, gave to the bereaved parents ideas above all sublunary things.

In vain endeavouring to chase the tear, Robert had accompanied the bier, and marked the spot where his master's eldest child, the youthful Aubrey, lay interred. He then retraced his way