Her ear would linger in vain for the voice it loved; her eye seek in sorrow for the graceful form, the beauteous features on which it had so loved to gaze.
New ties would supply to Caroline the place of all that she had left; deep springs of fond emotions, such as she had never felt before, would open in her heart, and then would she still love, would she still look to that mother, as in childhood and in youth she had done?
Vainly she struggled to subdue these thoughts, and bring forward in their stead the visions of happiness, which alone had visited her before.

Thronging and tumultuously they came, and tears stole slowly from those mild eyes, which for herself so seldom wept; while engrossed in her own reflections, she heard not the soft and careful opening of her door, she knew not that the beloved object of those tears had entered her room, and was kneeling beside her.
"Mother!" murmured Caroline, in a voice tremulous and weak with emotion equal to her own.

Mrs.Hamilton started, and her lip quivered with the effort she made to smile her greeting.

"Mother, my own mother, forgive my intrusion; I thought not to have found you thus.

Oh, deem me not failing in that deep reverence your goodness, your devotedness, have taught me to feel for you; if my love would bid me ask you why you weep, may I not share your sorrow, mother ?" "These are but selfish tears, my own; selfish, for they fall only when I think that to-morrow bears my Caroline away, and leaves her mother's heart for a time so lone and sad, that it will not even think of the happiness I so fondly trust will be hers, in becoming the bride of him she loves.