family? But you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have wived. For my part, I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool.
"Postscript.—My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in the coach with her?"
Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice been just the opposite.
He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and he often received one in return; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate.
But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress.
"George, my child is dying. What shall I do?"
He mounted his horse, and rode to her.
He came too late. The little boy had died suddenly of croup, and was to be buried next morning.
The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his coming. But a mother's anguish overpowered all.
Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she clung to George Neville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and one day implored him not to die and leave her.
Sir George said all he could think of to comfort her; and at the end of a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse," and England, as his wife.
She had little power to resist now, and indeed little inclination.
They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad.
At the end of that time they returned to Neville's Court, and Mercy took her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her in a humbler station.
Sir George had given her no lessons; but she had observed closely, for his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile, she seldom made him blush except with pride.
They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county.
The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply.
But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society.
Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and haughty people, rather despised this arrangement.
But it seems that, one day, when, they were all four in the Town Hall, folk whispered and looked; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never happen again. Hence it was quite understood that the Nevilles and the Gaunts were not to be asked to the same party or ball.
The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs. Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in saving young women, who had been betrayed, from sinking deeper.
Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and vice versâ; and so, merciful, but discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not wicked.
So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly mansions, they could do good together; and me-
