"
As she uttered these words in deep grief, it might have been observed,
that Lady Gourlay shed some quiet but apparently bitter tears. It is
impossible for us to enter into the heart, or its reflections; but it
is not, we think, unreasonable to suppose that while Lucy dwelt so
feelingly upon the loss of her mother, the other may have been thinking
upon that of her child.
"My dear girl," she exclaimed, "let the affectionate compact which I
have just proposed be ratified between us. My heart, at all events, has
already ratified it. I shall be as a mother to you, and you shall be to
me as a daughter."
"I know not, my dear aunt," replied Lucy, "whether to consider you more
affectionate than generous. How few of our sex, after--after--that
is, considering the enmities--in fact, how a relative, placed as you
unhappily are, would take me to her heart as you have done."
"Perhaps, my child, I were incapable of it, if that heart had never been
touched and softened by affliction. As it is, Lucy, let me say to you,
as one who probably knows the world better, do not look, as most young
persons like you do, upon the trials you are at present forced to
suffer, as if they were the sharpest and heaviest in the world.
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