ount that I left Maryland for the more equable climate of
Barton."

"You were everything to her that the most tender and noble friends could
be!" said the Earl, warmly. "She wrote me of all your kindness. Now let
me tell you a little about her. She was my sister's governess, and I saw
her in my college vacations. I need not tell you how lovely she was in
her youth. She was no French girl, but a country curate's daughter in
Hampshire. Now, Colonel Lunt, it would have been as impossible for me to
marry that girl--no matter how beautiful, refined, and good--as if she
had been a Hottentot. How often I have wished to throw birth,
connections, name, title, everything, to the winds, that I might take
Amy Percival to my heart and hold her there legally! How I have envied
the Americans, who care nothing for antecedents, to whom birth and
social position are literally nothing,--often not even fortunate
accidents! How many times I have read your papers, and imagined myself
thrown on my own resources only, like so many of your successful men,
and making my own way among you, taking my Amy with me and giving her a
respectable and happy home! But these social cobwebs by which we poor
flies are caught and held,--it is very hard to break them! I was always
going to do right, and always did wrong. After my great wrong to Amy,
which was a pretended marriage, she left me,--she had found out my
villany,--and went to America. She did not write to me until she knew
she must die, and then she related every particular,--all your great
kindness to both her and the child, and the motherly tenderness with
which Mrs. Lunt had endeavored to soften her sufferings. In twenty years
I have changed very much every way, but I have never ceased to feel
self-contempt for my conduct to Amy Percival."

Now a new question arose.

Was it best to reveal this last secret to Charles? He had been content
to take Percy, nameless and illegitimate. The Earl was extremely
unwilling to extend his confidence further than Colonel Lunt. It seemed
to him unnecessary. He said he desired to give Percy the same share of
his property that his other two daughters would receive on their
marriage, but that he could not openly do this without exciting remarks
and provoking unpleasant feelings. Colonel Lunt considered that the
secret was not his to keep or reveal. So nothing was said, and the
marriage took place at the house of the Earl; Colonel Lunt receiving
from Percy's fathe