ove a
cherished object, it may be with every fibre of our heart, ay, even
idolatrously; we would willingly spend and be spent to surround the
beloved one with materials for enjoyment; but these materials must be of
_our_ selection; we would sacrifice ourselves to lead them to happiness,
but _we_ must point out the road to them; we will bear every thing, endure
every thing, but the mortification of seeing them receive good at other
hands than our own. Ah! there are some rare exceptions to this rule, but
surely not more than enough to constitute it a rule.

Who that enjoyed the privilege of domestic intercourse with the venerable
and venerated father of the lovely Lucy Lee; he the most beloved as well
as respected inhabitant of the small town of ----; she not only the
prettiest but by far the most winning in her deportment of all the young
female circle of the place, of whom she was beyond all question the
ornament. Who that witnessed the fond pride with which the good old man
gazed upon her, as she glided around him, ministering to his wants with
that watchful ingenuity which characterizes woman's affection; who that
heard the tone of tenderness which marked even the most trifling word
addressed to her; a tenderness that seemed as if it might by its deep
pathos invoke every beneficent spirit to watch over her for good; his
early morning greeting, always accompanied by an upward look, which
proclaimed a daily aspiration of gratitude to the great Giver for the
precious gift; the nightly benediction which ever seemed as if it might
grow into a prayer for her welfare during the hours of darkness; who that
witnessed all this--and they could not be seen together without many such
hourly demonstrations of the father's love for his child shining through
his every word and action--but would have felt assured that this love
fashioned his every plan, and marked his estimate of the things of life?

Ah! of a certainty, it must have been so; her happiness must have been
safe in his keeping; and in truth, happiness had hitherto seemed hers by
prescriptive right. But all lanes however long turn at last, and those
most richly strewn with flowers are generally alas! by far the shortest.
Eighteen summers had flown since that which saw the little Lucy installed
sole possessor and sole solace of her bereaved father's heart; sole pledge
of a love which deeply rooted in a breast no longer subject to the
changeful fancies of youth, (for he had