dently nothing more to do. In penitence and prayer her time was entirely passed, but it is not for me to betray the secrets of the prison-house: suffice it to say that the faithful priest was the tender consoler, the spiritual comforter, and the sole earthly friend of that unhappy young lady. * Fair and fragile was the babe thus sorrowfully ushered into this world of wickedness; and the delicate plant so rudely severed from the parent stem, was reared with the utmost difficulty and care; and I think without the never ceasing, unparalleled devotion of the elder sister, never would have been accomplished. My Lord did not long survive his wife; poor gentleman! he had never recovered the shock he had sustained, and her loss completed the work of destruction. Three years after the vaults of the Abbey Chapel had been last opened, they were again unclosed for the reception of another load of clay; gorgeously hidden it is true, and pompously disposed of, but for all that, clay still, "dust to dust," corruption and the worm. Surely to the kindly and simple-hearted Marquis of S. Evremond might be applied that beautiful Eastern quotation from Sadi, "Compare not with another's my affliction : He only bears the salt upon his hand, I have it sprinkled on my wound." My Lady Winifred was left sole guardian and protectress of her infant sister; in no other way could my Lord so perfectly signify his perfect forgiveness and reliance upon her. The father knew that poor girl's heart; he knew the broken spirit's perfect contrition and devotion of purpose, and that she would be even more than mother to the young Aileen. Time proved my Lord had judged rightly: the Lady Winifred abandoned all intention of a conventual life, after her father's decease; she adopted a conventual dress, she knelt at the altar of the Chapel in the Forest: she there vowed herself to the service of heaven, acceptable only as she fulfilled her sacred duties to the bereaved orphan; and although not a professed nun, yet her own ancestral home became to her but one vast sacred altar, on which to offer up unceasing sacrifice. How wan she ever was !-and her large piercing eyes, so dark and awful, surrounded by their dark rim, her face bound with a white bandage, from which a thick black veil depended, made others never for one moment forget her history. She never did, I am certain. She it was who instituted the ceremonies which had no ending, a solemn service ever performing in that forest chapel, so that come when you might, at morning, noontide, evening, or midnight, chanting was ever heard there; incense ever ascend ing, fire ever burning: for my Lady Winifred had so willed it, that she believed no earthly foreseen power could ever militate to put an end to her pious arrangements. But alas! for human foresight; the place were that chapel once stood, I have heard, is nought but a mass of heavy ruins, overgrown with moss, covered by lichens and ivy. And now I have come to a part of my narrative that taxes all my strength the nurse Mona is not gifted with the powers of speech displayed by the learned and the eloquent of earth's favoured sons and daughters, though she profited, in all humility be it spoken, by the lessons vouchsafed to her in the stately home of her early days. Ochone! my darling, sad and touching are the memories that crowd on my imagination, when I name my tender nursling, the child of my soul, the Lady Aileen. I never see a lovely flower of earth, I never hear a strain of soft passing music, but she rises up before me! She was a flower of earth, she was a strain of music. She was not dazzling or beautiful, or full of life's early buoyancy and thoughtlessness. How can I describe her? so transparent and white a creature, with soft blue eyes, and a perfect halo of divine softness enfolding her : the words," ethereal, spiritualized, angelic," are all terms too romantic and sentimental to be applied to my tender bird, my love bird as I used to call her, for she delighted in the sunshine, the summer flowers, the forest glades, the "Verdurous glooms, and winding, mossy ways." Music pained her; she felt it so intensely, as each nerve thrilled and quivered beneath its alternations; it pained her, but it was a part of her young life, that life which seemed ever to hang on a thread finer than the finest gossamer. And it was not only for her life we feared; the finely-strung mind was so exquisitely spun and interwoven with the slight thread of her existence, that it seemed as if a very little shock would cause the whole delicate structure to vibrate too violently, at length to be overthrown, and scattered in fragments to the wind! Truly, she was a human sensitive plant, a shrinking, trembling, timid fawn. "For the sensitive plant has no bright flower, It loves-even like love, its deep heart is full, GENTLE reader, if there be one thing more than another to which we have an unconquerable objection, it is the being compelled to introduce ourselves under the cover of an apology. It exercises, we fancy, a somewhat damaging influence upon the minds of the parties interested; and, moreover, we have a certain awkward manner, whenever we attempt to stammer one out. We do not mean by any means to assert that it is a difficult matter for us to confess when we are wrong, if it have been shown by proofs which cannot be gainsaid. But it is after all an unpleasant thing (to say the least of it) to be forced to submit to condemnatory evidence; how much more so to take up one's pen with the certain knowledge that one is doing that for which, in all justice, an apology may be required. This is the dilemma in which we are at present. We see our difficulty, and yet we naturally enough shrink from letting our first sentences be apologetic. What can we do to preserve our own posi tion, and secure the favour of our friends at the same time? We will enter into a kind of compromise, albeit we hate such things most cordially as a rule; here we think it is a justifiable exception. And so we will e'en place on record here our unfeigned regret that we should be so ungallant.as to make "Rosa" give way to the editorial "We," and deprive our young readers of the pleasure of accompanying her in her summer wanderings, that they may go with us our country trip. We will not, of course, enter the arena with our fair and well-instructed contributor, and endeavour to vie with her in her lively and interesting narratives. However much we may doubt our own powers to describe what we have seen, and to give utterance to our secret thoughts, the subjects of which we treat will, we are confident, cause few to regret, "Though humble be the minstrel's skill." We are to speak of friends beloved and dear, whose names have become as "household words" to the family circle of our readers,-of sunny spots, and fair,-of Churches, beautiful for situation,—of reverend piles with open roofs, and painted glass, and vestments richly magnifical,—of sweet strains and swelling harmonies, and of far-off Parish Priests labouring 'mid rural scenes to bring back the wandering sheep, and to teach the young how they are ever to be "putting on CHRIST." These are the topics on which we shall dwell; and we doubt not that we shall strike some chords which will awaken responsive echoes in many a loving heart. “Our country trip." Ah! how we love the country, with its pleasant secluded spots, its little hills, its gentle streams and sunny banks, and all the calm, deep thoughts with which it fills the mind. There seems a voice that speaks of hope, when all is dark around; of peace, when elsewhere the Babel-strife of tongues prevails. Did you ever roam abroad in the quiet fields, or by the sad sea waves, without feeling that GOD still speaks to us in parables, and that a volume of mysterious teaching is close at hand? Wearied with the ceaseless din of controversy, broken down in health, racked by contending thoughts at the contest now raging between CHRIST and Antichrist, and moreover bent on a mission of love for our flock, we bade farewell to the deep blue sea, and lovely scenery of bonnie Devon, and onwards sped to hold sweet converse with kindred spirits,-to look back on the past, and forward to the days to come, and so to raise our drooping spirits, and recruit our failing health. We will not weary you with the tedious narrative of how we sped, and how we fared, and by easy stages reached our destination; nor yet will we speak of the noble pile of Exeter, and its glorious, if not unequalled services. We must, however, in passing, allude to our visit to Bristol Cathedral, where we had the pleasure of being present at matins. As most of our readers know, the Cathedral itself possesses but little of architectural beauty and grandeur. Upon this, and the magnificent S. Mary Redcliffe, we may hereafter make some remarks. We cannot but regret that the altar is not vested as we should have expected to have found it in the mother Church of the diocese. We went not to see, but to take part in the worship of GOD. Yet, as recent circumstances have given an unenviable notoriety to the present Dean, (Dr. Elliot,) a Priest who abjures his priesthood, the followed of those who are ready to cry, "Down with the Church, down with her even to the very ground,"'-we could not but feel some anxiety to see how matters were conducted under his supervision. Nor were we so shocked as we had expected; there was more order and decency than we had looked for. The long procession of the choristers and minor canons, &c., walked with quiet and solemn tread, and as they proceeded down the nave, we seemed to lack only the seemly "processionale." We were rejoiced to hear a Gregorian to the "Venite," though the character of the rest of the music was not such as we could desire. The renderings of some of the versicles and parts of the Litany were to our mind, in many points, among the worst we have heard. When shall we have one use, instead of many, so that all Churchmen, wherever they go, may be enabled to take their proper part in the "common services of the Church? However, it was a refreshment (as it always is) to hear sweet and solemn strains of music, in beautifully blended harmonies, with the organ's gentle undertone, and the organ, by the way, is played with exquisite taste and judgment, reminding one of the land where the glorious "Trisagion ever soundeth. But hence to other themes; this by the way. دو We will now plunge at once "in medias res." Look, reader, at the little woodcut that graces this article, and you will see at once where we are. In the snuggest little library you ever saw, -in that very beautiful rectory, sits your grave Editor, of whom it may be said, 66 Sæpe caput scaberet, vivos et roderet ungues," as he strives to string together thoughts that refuse to come when most they are wanted. If it were possible, we should much like to present you with a faithful representation thereof; a dash of the pen must suffice. Imagine, then, what a library generally is, with its ponderous folios, the lasting works and imperishable monuments of the mighty dead; and, in this case, its nice old oaken furniture. Opposite to us is our reverend friend, deep in some mysterious German book; whilst, on a chair near at hand, Miss "Pussy" sits most composedly, as if she, too, had an inordinate appetite for learned pursuits, and a perfect right to enjoy the society of men of letters. And then what a view it commands! How fair and beautiful even now, when the trees are naked and bare, and the snow lies deep on the distant Mendips! What must it be in the summer, when the roses creep over the |