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22
ETHEL CHURCHILL.


"I am in no hurry," said Henrietta, smiling; while her eye, glancing round the room, caught sight of Constance's picture. "How like, how very like!" exclaimed she, approaching it, partly to conceal her emotion.

"It is," said Lord Norbourne, "such a comfort, and such a companion."

"She looks like what she was, an angel!" exclaimed the countess, earnestly. "I never knew any one who did me so much good. I grew better while she was with me. Oh, Lord Norbourne! I felt her loss and yours deeply at the time: but I have felt it more bitterly since. My poor uncle——;" but she could not finish the sentence; and the tears she could not restrain, entirely overpowered her. "I wish," exclaimed she, in broken sobs, "that I had died instead of Constance!"

"My dear child," said Lord Norbourne, "you are too young, and should be too happy, for such a wish."

"I am not happy," she replied: "in losing my uncle, I lost the only human being who really cared for me. You cannot think how