Close beside us,—but the thunder
Of a city dulls our ear.
Every heart, like God's bright Angel,
Can bid one such sorrow cease;
God has glory when his children
Bring his poor ones joy and peace!
Listen, nearer while she sings
Sounds the fluttering of wings!

NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH.

"Is not Margaret the heiress?" whispered
Edith to her husband, as they were in their
room alone at night after the sad journey
to Oxford. She had pulled his tall head
down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored
him not to be shocked, before she had
ventured to ask this question. Captain
Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if
he had ever heard, he had forgotten; it could
not be much that a Fellow of a small college
had to leave; but he had never wanted her
to pay for her board; and two hundred and
fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous,
considering that she did not take wine. Edith
came down upon her feet a little bit sadder;
with a romance blown to pieces.

A week afterwards, she came prancing
towards her husband, and made him a low
curtsey:

"I am right, and you are wrong, most
noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's
letter, and she is residuary legatee—the
legacies being about two thousand pounds, and
the remainder about forty thousand, at the
present value of property in Milton"

"Indeed! and how does she take her good
fortune?"

"Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it
all along; only she had no idea it was so
much. She looks very white and pale, and
says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense,
you know, and will soon go off. I left
mamma pouring congratulations down her
throat, and stole away to tell you."

It seemed to be supposed, by general
consent, that the most natural thing was to
consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as
Margaret's legal adviser. She was so entirely
ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly
everything she had to refer to him. He
chose out her attorney; he came to her with
papers to be signed. He was never so happy
as when teaching her of what all these mysteries
of the law were the signs and types.

"Henry," said Edith, one day, archly; "do
you know what I hope and expect all these long
conversations with Margaret will end in?"

"No, I don't," said he, reddening. "And
I desire you not to tell me."

"Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto
not to ask Mr. Montagu so often to the
house"

"Just as you choose," said he with forced
coolness. "What you are thinking of, may or
may not happen; but this time, before I
commit myself, I will see my ground clear.
Ask whom you choose. It may not be very
civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will
mar it. She has been very farouche with me
for a long time; and is only just beginning
to thaw a little from her Zenobia ways.
She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if
only she were a little more pagan."

"For my part," said Edith, a little
maliciously, "I'm very glad she is a Christian.
I know so very few!"

There was no Spain for Margaret that
autumn; although to the last she hoped that
some fortunate occasion would call Frederick
to Paris, whither she could easily have met
with a convoy. Instead of Cadiz, she had to
content herself with Cromer. To that place
her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were
bound. They had all along wished her to
accompany them, and, consequently, with
their characters, they made but lazy efforts
to forward her own separate wish. Perhaps
Cromer was, in one sense of the expression,
the best for her. She needed bodily strengthening
and bracing as well as rest.

She used to sit long hours upon the beach,
gazing intently on the waves as they
chafed with perpetual motion against the
pebbly shore,—or she looked out upon the
more distant heave and sparkle against the
sky, and heard, without being conscious of
hearing, the eternal psalm, which went up
continually. She was soothed without knowing
how or why. Listlessly she sat there, on
the ground, her hands clasped round her
knees, while her Aunt Shaw did small
shoppings, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far
and wide on shore and inland. The nurses,
sauntering on with their charges, would
pass and repass her, and wonder in whispers
what she could find to look at so long, day
after day. And when the family gathered
at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and
absorbed that Edith voted her moped, and
hailed a proposal of her husband's with great
satisfaction, that Mr. Henry Lennox should
be asked to take Cromer for a week, on his
return from Scotland in October.

But all this time for thought enabled
Margaret to put events in their right places, as to
origin and significance, both as regarded her
past life and her future. Those hours by the
sea-side were not lost, as any one might have
seen who had had the perception to read, or
the care to understand, the look that
Margaret's face was gradually acquiring. Mr.
Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the
change.

"The sea has done Miss Hale an immense
deal of good, I should fancy," said he, when
she first left the room after his arrival in
their family circle. "She looks ten years
younger than she did in Harley Street."

"That's the bonnet I got her!" said