vour to stay at home. His lot was cast; and while he gazed on the miserable looks of his parents, and listened to' their lamentations for his loss, and prayers for his safety, he owned that the anguish of his feelings was a just retribution for disregarding the suggestions of filial piety.

At the moment of his leaving the parental roof, and when his parents, convinced that they should see him no more, had just folded him, in speechless agony, in a last embrace, he wrung Mary's cold hand, and said, pointing to his father and mother, "I bequeath them to your care, Mary."

"That was quite unnecessary," she replied, half reproachfully.

"And Fanny, too," he added, in a fainter voice.

"There was no need of that neither," she returned; "you love her, that's enough!"

"Mary, dear Mary!" cried Llewellyn; but she had left the room.

After Llewellyn had been gone a day or two, Fanny ceased to grieve, except by fits and starts; and left off protesting that she had now no enjoyment except in the company of Mary, with whom she could talk incessantly of her absent lover; nay, on the contrary, she seemed to avoid Mary, as the sight of her mournful countenance recalled ideas from which she wished to fly and while Mary, by the most kind and constant attention, endeavoured to supply to Llewellyn's parents the loss of their son, Fanny was displaying her fine person at parades, reviews, and public walks; and though she loved the absent Llewellyn, she could not bear to forego the incense offered to her beauty by the admirers who were present.

At length they received a letter from Llewellyn. He had been in two engagements, and had escaped unhurt. Again and again he wrote; but at last months and months elapsed, and no intelligence was received of him; and there seemed little doubt that he had either fallen in the field, or perished during the horrible march of our troops in the winter of 1794.

Still his mother and Mary entertained a hope that he would return; but his father gave him up for lost, and in a short time breathed his last, pronouncing Llewellyn's name, and blessing him in a tone of agony that almost broke the heart of poor Mary.

His wife continued to exist; but her suspense and fearful hope ended in a sort of harmless insanity: whenever any one knocked at the door, she had for some months

fancied it was Llewellyn, and in every one who had passed the window she had seen a resemblance of her son.

But nature at length sunk under the pressure of disease. On her death-bed she recovered her senses, and every epithet and every blessing that grateful affection could dictate, she bestowed on the kind and attentive Mary. Mary's heart enjoyed this proof that she had done her duty; but it enjoyed far more the oft repeated blessings and the ardent prayer which, to the last, the dying, but still hoping parent breathed for Llewellyn.

One evening after Llewellyn's parents had been dead some months, and when Mary had, as usual visited their graves to strew them with fresh flowers (as is customary in many parts of Wales) and weed the little garden which she had planted on them-instead of returning home she sat herself down on a wooden bench, at the entrance of the churchyard, which commanded a view of the town; and as she listened to the distant and varied sounds which reached her ear from the barracks, and a crowded fair about a mile distant;-time insensibly stole away, and, lost in her own thoughts, she was not conscious of the approach of a stranger, till he had reached the bench, and was preparing to sit down on it.

Mary started; but, with that untaught courtesy which the benevolent always possess, she made room for the intruder to sit down, by removing to the other side of the seat. Neither of them spoke; and Mary insensibly renewed her meditations. But at length the evident agitation and loud though suppressed sobs of the stranger attracted her attention to him, and excited her compassion. "Poor man!" thought Mary, "perhaps he has been visiting the new made grave of some dear friend:" and insensibly she turned towards the unhappy stranger, expecting to see him in deep mourning; but he was wrapped up in a great coat that looked like a regimental one. This made Mary's pity even greater than before: for, ever since Llewellyn had enlisted, she had lost her boasted insensibility to soldiers and their concerns.

"He is a soldier, too," said Mary to herself; "who knows but?" Here the train of her ideas was suddenly broken; for an audible and violent renewal of the stranger's distress so overset her feelings, already softened by her visit to the grave of her relations, and the recollections in which she had been indulging, that she could keep her seat no longer, besides, conscious that true sorrow loves

not to be observed, she felt it indelicate to continue there; but as she slowly withdrew, she could not help saying in a faltering and compassionate tone, " Good evening, Sir, and heaven comfort you."

At the sound of her voice the stranger started, "Oh !" he exclaimed, rushing towards her, "Tis she!-'tis Mary!" Mary turned about on hearing herself named, and in a voice so dear to her; and in an instant found herself clasped in the arms of Llewellyn.

To describe the incoherence either of grief or joy is impossible; suffice, that Mary was at length able to articulate, "We feared that you were dead."

"You see that I am not dead," replied Llewellyn, "but I find that others are;" here tears choked his voice, but recovering himself, he added, pointing to the grave of his parents, "O Mary! that was a sad sight for me; I have found much sorrow awaiting me."

"You know all, then?" interrupted Mary, with quick

ness.

"I know that I have lost both my parents, and I fear my disobedience-my obstinacy-tell me tell me, Mary, did they forgive me, and leave me their blessing? Many, many a pang have I felt when I thought of my ingratitude and disobedience in leaving them; and in all my hardships I have said to myself Unnatural child! this is no more than you have well deserved.'"

Dear, dear Llewellyn!" cried Mary, "do not grieve yourself in this manner. If my son should ever return,' they both of them said, and they were loth to believe you would not, tell him,' were the words of each of them, 'that I prayed for and blessed him on my death-bed.""

"Thanks to Providence!" replied Llewellyn; and for a few moments neither he nor Mary could speak. At length Llewellyn said, "Pray whose pious hand has decked their grave with flowers?"

"I did it," answered Mary, and as she said this she thought she saw disappointment in the face of her cousin. But her look was a transient one, for she was careful not to let her eyes dwell on Llewellyn's face, lest she should wound his feelings, as the fate of war had sadly changed him. His forehead was scarred, he wore a black patch on his right cheek, and his left arm was in a sling; besides, fatigue, low living, and imprisonment had made him scarcely recognisable, except by the eye of love and friendship. He had been left for dead on the field of battle, and when life re

turned, he found himself in a French hospital, whence he was conveyed to a prison, and in due time was released by a cartel.

"You see I am dreadfully altered," said Llewellyn, observing that Mary watched her opportunity of looking at him." I dare say you would scarcely have known me!" "I should know you any where, and in any disguise," said Mary, warmly :-" but you seem fatigued: let us go to my little lodging."

"I am faint and weary, indeed," replied he, accepting the arm which Mary offered him, as they walked towards the town: "but I am come home to good nurses, I trust, though, one of them is dead (drawing his hand across his eyes as he said it): and my native air, and the sight of all I love, will, I doubt not, soon restore me to health."

As he uttered these words he fixed his eyes steadfastly on Mary's face, which she hastily averted, and he felt her arm trembling under his.

"Mary!" exclaimed he, suddenly stopping," you must guess the question which I am longing to ask, but dare not! Oh, these horrible forebodings!-Mary, why do you not put an end to this suspense which tortures me?" "She is well," replied, Mary, in a faint voice. "And not-not married, I hope?"

"Oh! no, no, no,-not married," replied Mary.

"It is enough!" exclaimed Llewellyn; and Mary was about to speak, when she was prevented by violent shouts and bursts of laughter from persons approaching themthe path which they were in being immediately across the road which led from the fair.

"Hark! I hear singing," said Llewellyn, his whole frame trembling; " and surely in a voice not unknown to

me!"

"Nonsense!-impossible!" replied his agitated companion, violently seizing his arm." But let us go another way."

"I will go no way but this," said Llewellyn, resolutely; and the voice began again to sing a song which in happier times had been often sung by Fanny, and admired by Llew ellyn." I thought so:-it is Fanny who is singing!" he exclaimed, in a tone of suppressed agony.-" What does this mean!-Tell me, Mary, I conjure you?"

"This way-come this way," repeated Mary, trying to force him down a different path, but in vain; when, sup

ported under the arms of two drunken soldiers, and more than half intoxicated herself, flushed with intemperance, dressed in the loose and gay attire of a courtezan, and singing with all the violence of wanton mirth, they beheld Fanny! After Llewellyn's departure she had fallen a victim to the flatteries and attentions of an officer; and had at length become a follower of the camp.

At sight of Fanny in this situation Mary uttered a loud scream; but Llewellyn stood motionless and lifeless as a statue, with his eyes fixed on the still lovely, though degraded form, before him. But the scream of Mary had attracted the attention of Fanny; and her eye, quick as lightning, saw and recognised Llewellyn. She also screamed, but it was in the tone of desperation: and rushing forwards, she fell madly laughing on the ground. The soldiers, concluding she laughed and fell from excessive mirth, laughed louder than she did; and, in spite of her struggles, conveyed her in their arms up the road that led to the camp. Llewellyn had sprung forward to catch her as she was falling, but Mary had forcibly withheld him-but that was the last effort of expiring energy. With tottering steps, and in silent agony, he accompanied Mary to her lodging, and ere two hours had elapsed he was raving in the delirium of a fever, and Mary began to fear that the beloved friend whom war had spared to her would have returned only to die the victim of a worthless woman. Day was slowly beginning to dawn, and Llewellyn was fallen into a perturbed slumber, when Mary as she stood mournfully gazing on his altered features, heard a gentle tap at her window, and, softly approaching it, beheld, with no small emotion, the wretched Fanny herself.

"Go away-go away!" cried Mary in a low voice, putting her lips to the casement.

"I cannot go till I have seen him," replied Fanny, in a hoarse voice." I know he is here-and pray, pray!" said she, falling on her knees, "let me ask his pardon.'

"Impossible!" replied Mary, gently unlocking the door, and closing it after her as she stood at the door." He is ill, perhaps dying-the sight of you-"

"Has killed him, no doubt," interrupted Fanny, turning even paler than before, and full of the dreadful irritation consequent on intoxication after its effects have subsided. "But do you think he will not curse me in his last moments, as they say his parents did?"