could not exhibit if he were leaving the world instead of entering
it.

"Hem!" said Sir Peter to himself on regaining the solitude of his
library; "a philosopher who contributes a new inhabitant to this vale of
tears takes upon himself very anxious responsibilities--"

At that moment the joy-bells rang out from the neighbouring church
tower, the summer sun shone into the windows, the bees hummed among the
flowers on the lawn. Sir Peter roused himself and looked forth, "After
all," said he, cheerily, "the vale of tears is not without a smile."

CHAPTER II.

A FAMILY council was held at Exmundham Hall to deliberate on the name
by which this remarkable infant should be admitted into the Christian
community. The junior branches of that ancient house consisted, first,
of the obnoxious heir-at-law--a Scotch branch named Chillingly Gordon.
He was the widowed father of one son, now of the age of three, and
happily unconscious of the injury inflicted on his future prospects by
the advent of the new-born, which could not be truthfully said of his
Caledonian father. Mr. Chillingly Gordon was one of those men who get on
in the world with out our being able to discover why. His parents died
in his infancy and left him nothing; but the family interest procured
him an admission into the Charterhouse School, at which illustrious
academy he obtained no remarkable distinction. Nevertheless, as soon as
he left it the State took him under its special care, and appointed him
to a clerkship in a public office. From that moment he continued to get
on in the world, and was now a Commissioner of Customs, with a salary of
L1500 a year. As soon as he had been thus enabled to maintain a wife,
he selected a wife who assisted to maintain himself. She was an Irish
peer's widow, with a jointure of L2000 a year.

A few months after his marriage, Chillingly Gordon effected insurances
on his wife's life, so as to secure himself an annuity of L1000 a year
in case of her decease. As she appeared to be a fine healthy woman, some
years younger than her husband, the deduction from his income effected
by the annual payments for the insurance seemed an over-sacrifice of
present enjoyment to future contingencies. The result bore witness to
his reputation for sagacity, as the lady died in the second year of
their wedding, a few months after the birth of her only child, and of a
heart-disease which had been latent to the doctors, but which, no doubt,
Gor