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 what hope is there that any thing I can say will avail?" "Had my mother lived," said Calantha, "she had acted as you have done. You look so like her at this moment, that it breaks my heart. Thank God, she does not live, to see her child's disgrace." As she spoke, Calantha burst into tears, and threw her arms around her aunt's neck.

"Calm yourself, my child." "Hear me," said Lady Avondale. "Perhaps I shall never more see you. I have drawn down such misery upon myself, that I cannot bear up under it. If I should die,—and there is a degree of grief that kills—take care of my children. Hide from them their mother's errors. Oh, my dear aunt, at such a moment as this, how all that attracted in life, all that appeared brilliant, fades away. What is it I have sought for? Not real happiness—not virtue, but vanity, and far worse." "Calantha," said Mrs. Seymour, as she wept over her