pth and strength of her
character. Partly to divert her thoughts from subjects dangerous to her
peace, and partly from the natural bent of her inclinations, she sought
assiduously to cultivate the powers of her mind, while her affections
found ample scope for their exercise in the love of her infant son, and
in considerate care for her many dependants, by all of whom she was
loved and reverenced in no common degree. She learned thus the grand
lessons--'to suffer and be strong,' and to make the best of destiny; and
she felt that if she were a sadder woman, she was also a wiser one, and
at any price wisdom, she knew, is a purchase not to be despised.

Mrs. Beauchamp had been married little more than five years when her
husband died. His will showed, that however unhappy he had made her
during his life, he had not been insensible to her merit, for he left
her the sole guardian of their only son, and, while she should remain
unmarried, the mistress of Woodthorpe Hall. In the childish affection
and opening mind of her little boy poor Emily at last found
happiness--unspeakable happiness, although it was of course qualified by
the anxiety inseparable from parental love. She doted upon him; but her
love was of too wise and unselfish a nature to permit her to spoil him,
while her maternal affection furnished her with another motive for the
cultivation of her own mind and the improvement of her own character.
She was fired with the noble ambition of being the mother of her child's
mind, as well as of that mind's mere perishable shrine.

II.

Twenty-five years have passed away, with all their changes--their many
changes; and now,

'Gone are the heads of silvery hair,
And the young that were have a brow of care:'

And the babe of twenty-five years ago is now a man, ready to rush into
the thickest and the hottest of the great battle of life.

It was Christmas time; the trees were bare on Woodthorpe Chase; the
lawns were whitened by a recent shower of snow, and crisped by a sharp
frost; the stars were coming out in the cold cloudless sky; and two
enormous fires, high piled with Christmas logs, blazed, crackled, and
roared in the huge oaken chimneys of the great oak hall. Mrs. Beauchamp
and her son sat together in the drawing-room, in momentary expectation
of the arrival of their Christmas guests--a party of cousins, who lived
at about ten miles' distance from Woodthorpe Hall. Edmund Beauchamp was
now a very promising