OLD MORTALITY.
No. 9.— EDITH BELLENDEN.
Despite of the loyalist aunt, and the Presbyterian uncle,
"How happily the days of Thalaba went by,"
when Henry Morton met Edith Bellenden in the green woods, nigh to the ancient and honoured tower, where his Majesty breakfasted. Marmontel says, somewhat irreverently, while speaking of love-making, "le bonheur lui même n’est pas grande chose, mais les avenues sont delicieuses," and he is so far right, that the earliest is the happiest time of that love, which is everywhere but on the lip. The cheek burns, the eye kindles, the step is lighter, and the voice softer, in that sweet time, when the conscious feelings have never ventured into words; it is like the feeling with which we listen to distant, yet exquisite, music; to speak were to break the lovely enchantment. Scott for once writes, not as if he had keenly observed, but
