of adversity, if it
should ever come.

As the heiress of immense wealth, her hand was eagerly sought in the
aristocratic circle around her; but thus far she had resisted all these
attacks upon her heart, and upon her prospective riches. In the crowd of
suitors who gathered around her was Anthony Maxwell. In the item of
wealth his fortune was comparatively small; and in that of a noble
character, smaller still. Emily could have forgiven him the want of the
former, but the latter was imperatively demanded. At the young lawyer's
return from the North, and on his first appearance at the bar, Emily had
regarded him with more than ordinary attention. But, after the death of
his father, the reports which reached her ears of his dissolute habits
and inclinations caused her to regard him with distrust. His wit,
accomplishments and native suavity, had procured him admission into the
circle of her more favored friends. But the report of his vices had as
promptly produced his expulsion.

The return of the army from Mexico brought with it the young officer
whom we have before mentioned. The father of this young man had been a
companion-in-arms of Colonel Dumont, and a strong friendship had grown
up between the veterans. The tie was severed only by the death of the
former, after a life of mercantile misfortunes, and finally of utter
ruin. At the period of the father's insolvency and death, Henry Carroll,
the son, was a cadet at West Point, and was about abandoning his chosen
profession, for the want of means, when Colonel Dumont wrote him an
affectionate letter, offering all that he required to complete his
studies. This offer, coming from one who had been a heavy loser by his
father's bankruptcy, was highly appreciated, and the young student had
allowed no false delicacy to prevent his acceptance of the generous
proposal, though with a stipulation to repay all sums, with interest.
Colonel Dumont, in his regular summer tour to the North, never failed to
visit his young friend, whose noble bearing and lofty principle entirely
won his heart, and he charged himself with a father's duty towards him.
A regular correspondence was kept up between the self-constituted
guardian and his _protege_; and the more the former read the heart of
the young man, the more did he rejoice that he had befriended him. He
read with mingled pride and affection the repeated instances of his
daring courage and matchless skill which found their way into the
ne