"We came on through Carlisle, and passed the boundary line between Scotland and England, and reached this place before dark,--the first town over the border. It is a very small village, consisting of scarcely more than a dozen white cottages, but it has, perhaps, been the scene of as many critical events as many a larger one. We are at a very comfortable inn, got up for the accommodation of the fugitives who fly hither to seal their fate with the blacksmith's unholy blessing. Do not be alarmed for me, although I am quietly seated in the very room which has witnessed the consummation 'so devoutly wished' by most young dames. It is, indeed, mortifying to find one's self so near the goal, with so many requisites, obliged to miss the glorious opportunity for the want of one trifling article,--a husband; but so it is, and notwithstanding I am treading fairy land, I in vain look for some kind godmother to conjure up the needful, and must even submit to single blessedness a little longer. But I must stop; and have not time to look this over.
Very different from its beginning was the termination of the pleasant tour through Scotland. Mary felt it a duty to suppress all longings to go on with her good friend, who was soon to leave the country. Gladly would she have returned with her to America at once. But the great purpose, certainly one of the chief objects, for which she had gone abroad, was not yet accomplished. Her father's only sister, who had been left a widow in a very destitute condition, was still living in a distant and obscure village of Yorkshire. Mr. Pickard had made an annual provision for her support while he lived, and his daughter determined to carry out his intentions, so far as she could. Yet she felt that no aid in her power to send would be as much to her poor aunt as a visit, and she had been anxiously looking for an escort to the place, which was so remote as to make it hardly prudent for a lady and a stranger to venture alone. She was therefore the more ready to accompany her friends to Scotland, as on their return they would go within eighty miles of Osmotherly, her aunt's residence. Accordingly she parted from them at Penrith, and went the rest of the way alone.