He looked back to his hurried and feverish life in London, and felt, how much happier was the one that he had formerly planned to himself. With Ethel for his companion, he would have desired no happiness beyond his own hearth, no sphere of utility beyond his native hills.
The evening wore away, and the long grass was silvery with dew; the consequence was what might have been expected,—next day, he was laid up with a violent cold; and the fever soon ran so high, that delirium came on; and before three days were past, his life hung upon a thread.
Mrs. Courtenaye hung over him in silent despair; and despair increased by all that escaped from his lips during the delirium of fever. Till the present moment, Mrs. Courtenaye had believed that her son's attachment had been merely a boyish passion; eager and romantic at the time, but leaving no after-trace on the character. The delicate silence that he had observed on the subject, tended
