linked to each other even, if that where possible, by a
stronger band.

The war threw Lindsay into a perilous predicament. His estates were
large, and his principles exposed him to the sequestration which was
rigidly enforced against the royalist party. To avoid this blow, or, at
least, to mitigate its severity, he conveyed the estate of the Dove Cote
to Mildred; assigning, as his reason for doing so, that, as it was
purchased with moneys belonging to his wife, he consulted and executed
her wish, in transferring the absolute ownership of it to his daughter.
The rest of his property was converted into money, and invested in funds
in Great Britain. As soon as this arrangement was made, about the second
year of the war, the Dove Cote became the permanent residence of the
family; Lindsay preferring to remain here rather than to retire to
England, hoping to escape the keen notice of the dominant party, and to
find, in this classic and philosophical privacy, an oblivion of the rude
cares that beset the pillow of every man who mingled in the strife of
the day.

He was destined to a grievous disappointment. His wife, to whom he was
romantically attached, was snatched from him by death, just at this
interesting period. This blow, for a time, almost unseated his reason.
The natural calm of such a mind as Lindsay's is not apt to show
paroxysms in grief. Its sorrow was too still and deep for show. The
flight of years, however, brought healing on their wings; and Mildred
and Henry gradually relumed their father's countenance with flashes of
cheerful thought, that daily grew broader and more abiding; till, at
last, sense and duty completed their triumph, and once more gave Lindsay
to his family, unburdened of his grief, or, if not unburdened,
conversing with it only in the secret hours of self-communion.

His hopes of ease and retirement were disappointed in another way. The
sequesterment of the Dove Cote was not sufficient to shut out the noise
nor the intrigues of the war. His reputation, as a man of education, of
wealth, of good sense, and especially as a man of aristocratic
pretensions, irresistibly drew him into the agitated vortex of politics.
His house was open to the visits of the tory leaders, no less than to
those of the other side; and, although this intercourse could not be
openly maintained without risk, yet pretexts were not wanting,
occasionally, to bring the officers and gentlemen in the British
interest to the Do