a painful and unlooked-for reverse came with a
shock that, for a few moments, bewildered and alarmed.

"Are not my children willing to share the good and evil of life with
their father?" Mr. Morton resumed after the gush of tears that
followed the announcement of his changed fortunes had in a degree
subsided.

"Yes, dear father! be they what they may," Constance, the eldest, a
young lady in her seventeenth year, said, looking up affectionately
through her tears.

Mary, next in years, pressed up to her father's side, and twining an
arm around his neck, kissed his forehead tenderly. She did not
speak; for her heart was too full; but it needed no words to assure
him that her love was as true as the needle to the pole.

Eliza, but twelve, and like an unfolding bud half revealing the
loveliness and beauty within, could not fully comprehend the whole
matter. But enough she did understand, to know that her father was
in trouble, and this brought her also to his side.

"Do not think of us, dear father!" Constance said, after the pause
of a few oppressive moments. "Let the change be what it may, it
cannot take from us our father's love, and our father's honourable
principles. Nor can it change the true affection of his children. I
feel as if I could say, With my father I could go unto prison or to
death."

The father was much moved. "That trial, my dear children, I trust
you may never be called upon to meet. The whole extent of the
painful one into which you are about to enter, you cannot now
possibly realize, and I earnestly hope that your hearts may not fail
you while passing through the deep waters. But one thought may
strengthen; think that by your patience and cheerfulness, your
father's burdens will be lightened. He cannot see you pained without
suffering a double pang himself."

"Trust us, father," was the calm, earnest, affectionate reply of
Constance; and it was plain, by the deep resolution expressed in the
faces of her sisters, that she spoke for them as well as herself.

And now, the shadow that was obscuring their earthly prospects,
began to fall thicker upon them. At the meeting of his creditors
which was called, he gave a full statement of his affairs.

"And now," he said, "I am here to assign everything. In consequence
of heavy, and you all must see, unavoidable, losses, this assignment
will include all my property, and still leave a small deficiency.
Beyond that, I can only hope for success in my fut