THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



obscured nearly as suddenly as it bursts forth. Sucli vicissi- 

 tudes as these, however, are fearful lessons to all possessors of 

 wealth and honours ; and their participation in them tends to 

 render those who possess not such dazzling appearances more 

 satisfied and contented with their lot. But Lady Charlotte's 

 trial was not yet completed. Having constantly present to her 

 n)ind the figure of her departed son during his illness — the 

 deep red hectic spot that burned in the centre of his cheek ; 

 the skin of his forehead of that transparent white which added 

 the mockery of beaut_y to the ravages of disease ; his bright 

 brown hair having that silken flow peculiar- to persons of 

 delicate frame ; his form wasted to a fearful thinness — to the 

 utmost extent, indeed, to which the human frame can be 

 reduced without being dissolved ; and in his gait, the flat- 

 footed tread of weakness, instead of the bounding step of 

 youth wdiich once was his ; when dwelling upon this sad pic- 

 ture, then, and viewing it, as she did, through the medium of 

 a morbid imagination, natural though we may allow it to have 

 been — for, as the poet sa3\s — 



'When trees do drop their fruits in autumn ripeness, 

 'Tis Nature's common course, and so we look on't ; 

 But when unseasonous frost nip promisinff buds. 

 And lovely blossoms, then the heart grows sad 

 To see those troth-plights of much after riches 

 Untimely broken ; ' — 



she ever and anon fancied that signs of the same insidious 

 complaint were visible in the person of her eldest daughter, 

 just budding into womanhood. Then her imagination was 

 strengthened and her fears increased by having read in books 

 that there is a sacred halo round those whom we see in the 

 bloom of years destined for the grave, and even that — bugbear 

 as it might be — would occasionally present itself to her 

 diseased mind. Here, however, her prayers were heard, and 

 the cup of bitterness was not suflered to overflow. Nature 

 came to the relief of one of the fairest of her creatures : as 

 the frame of Miss Raby exj)anded, her strength proportionately 

 increased, and in three years from tlie period to which we are 

 alluding, there were not two healthier nor handsomer young- 

 ladies than herself in her own county, or in the next. The 

 health and spirits of her amiable and once beautiful mother 



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