with his high moral principles and intellectual faculties, and in this favoured country, he must rise, he must accomplish a brilliant destiny. But O, Rosalie, my child, in the meanwhile, I dread for you those toilsome, terrible first steps on the road to success! O Rosalie, pause! How much wiser to wait until he has conquered success !"

"And share his triumphs when I would not share his toils? No! no! no!"

"It would be so much safer, Rosalie !"

"And so much more prudent to allow him, in those moments of depression and despondency that must come, to think that it is only the successful statesman or jurist whose fortunes I would share, not those of the toiling aspirant! To turn a second India on his hands, and so forever and forever break down his faith in womanhood, in disinterestedness, and in truth! No! no! no! and a thousand times no! I have the blessed privilege of healing the heart that India wounded, of lifting up the brow that she bowed down, of strengthening and sustaining the faith that she weakened."

"If you should be a burden to him?"

"I will never be a burden to him! Providence will never so fail me. Mine is no sudden girlish fancy. It is a deep, earnest affection, arising from the profoundest sentiments of esteem and honour that ever woman felt for man-and the Father who inspired it will bless it. HE who in his benignant love said, 'It is not good for man to be alone,' will strengthen me to be a true help-meet for my husband."

"O Rosalie! be practical, child !"

"Be faithful first, and practical afterwards."

"Rosalie, you don't know what you brave! Fancy yourself and Mark now married, and housekeeping (forsooth!) in some wretched log-cabin or some lathand-plaster shell of a shanty, in some new Western village. Fancy yourselves both down with that curse of new settlements, the ague, and each unable to help the other, and no one to give you a cup of tea, and perhaps with no tea in the house."

"That is a plain statement of a very dismal contingency, dear mamma. Yet I have no doubt that we should shiver and shake safely through it, as others have done. Yet it is not fair or wise to contemplate the worst possibility only. The Western pioneers are not always laid up with the ague and without tea!" said Rosalie, with a sparkle of fun in her eyes.

But in a moment after, the young girl's face grew serious, and she said, in a tremulous voice, "And besides, dear mamma, the very bugbears that you have evoked to frighten me from my journey only draw me on to go. Oh, do you think, mamma, that I could bear to stay here in safety, ease, and luxury, and know that he was far away, exposed to all the dangers, hardships, and privations of a pioneer life?" "Nonsense! Danger is the natural element of man! to seek it is the nature of the creature!"

"Yes, mamma; but illness, fever, burning thirst, solitude, and helplessness, is not. And, if I thought that Mark were suffering all these things in some wretched Western cabin, and I not near to bathe his head and give him a cup of cold water, and to nurse and comfort and soothe him, but separated from him by thousands of miles of mountains and plains, I tell you, mamma, it would nearly break my heart! It is no

use! I must go with him, to meet whatever of good or ill Fate has in store. It can have nothing else so evil as a separation! Oh! I feel as if the worst calamity that could possibly befall me, would be a separation from him."

"Foolish girl! You love that broad-shouldered, robust man, as tenderly as a mother loves her babe!"

"I love him with a tenderness and sympathy that makes me tremblingly alive to his least sorrow or lightest pain; and yet mark you, mamma, with an esteem, with a depth of respect, with an honour that makes me aspire to his approbation as my highest good under Heaven !"

"O Rosalie, I will not farther oppose you! Yet, if you only had strength to endure the hardships of a Western life, I should feel less anxiety."

"Do not fear. I shall be able to endure, because 'my good will is to it; and energetic, because I shall have a good motive; and healthy, because I shall be happy-because my heart will be right and at rest; for I say it again, because it is a great deep truth'Out of the heart are the issues of life! Yes, out of the heart are the issues of will, purpose, hope, health, strength, enterprise, achievement, SUCCESS! Out of the heart are the issues of all the good that can come back to us in time or eternity! on earth or in Heaven!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

DEPARTURES.

"We foresee and could foretel

Thy future fortune sure and well;

But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,

And let them say what thou shalt do !”—Browning.

WITH Miss Vivian's uncle the difficulty was even less in obtaining his consent to the marriage with Mark Sutherland; and for the following reasons:Colonel Ashley worshipped his proud, talented son, St. Gerald; and in his estimation no interests could compete for an instant with St. Gerald's interests. Colonel Ashley liked Rosalie well enough, and wished her well enough, and he was resolved to do all he could to insure her future happiness; yet if a slight risk of her welfare would insure the domestic peace and content of St. Gerald, Colonel Ashley was not one to hesitate between the conflicting interests of his niece and son. And that the marriage and departure of Mark Sutherland and Rosalie would tend greatly to tranquillise the life of the already disturbed husband, he could not now doubt.

It was dreadful to notice all the fatal effects of India's want of faith-it was awful to anticipate the final result. The once haughty and self-possessed woman was growing spiritless and nervous, subject to extremes of excitement and depression, moody, irritable, and flighty to the last degree. Her glorious beauty was withering, wilting, as you have seen some

richly-blooming flower wither suddenly without apparent cause-wither as if scorched by the burning breath of the sirocco. And the cause was apparent to every one around her, not excepting her bitterlywronged and most wretched husband-to every one around her but Rosalie, whose perfect truth and innocence of heart shielded her from the suspicion of so much evil. If it was fearful to see the ravages that misery had made in the glorious beauty of India, it was not less so to observe its desolating effect upon the splendid genius of St. Gerald.

It was now a stirring time with aspiring young statesmen. A great national crisis was at hand; and it behooved all prominent politicians to be up and doing. St. Gerald, of all statesmen, should have been the most active, the most energetic. The eyes of his party were turned in anxiety towards him-the eyes of old grey heads, exhausted by a long life's service, and reposing on their well-earned laurels, and the eyes of young aspirants, panting to succeed to them, were all fixed upon St. Gerald, as their hope, their leader, and their deliverer! A senator already, he is carried up on the tenth wave of popular favour! Should he serve them well in this crisis, as he surely can if he will, for his talent, his eloquence, his influence is mighty among the nations; should he serve them well this time, there is no honour, no, not the highest in the gift of the people, to which he may not reasonably aspire! St. Gerald should be busy now-riding from town to town, from county to county, from State to State-convening the people, organising meetings, making speeches, drawing up resolutions, and doing all those multifarious acts by which states