e to his father and mother. They had a little baby, who
was sent over to me when the wife died--for, thank God! she did die in
a few years' time. My son was restored to our love, and he received
our forgiveness; but we never saw him again. He took a fever of the
country, and was a corpse in a few hours. My second boy was in the
navy--a fine high-spirited fellow, who seemed to set all the accidents
of life at defiance. I could not believe in any harm coming to _him_.
He was so strong, so healthy, so beautiful, so bright: he might have
been immortal, for all the elements of decay that shewed themselves in
him. Yet this glorious young hero was drowned--wrecked off a
coral-reef, and flung like a weed on the waters. He lost his own life
in trying to save that of a common sailor--a piece of pure gold
bartered for the foulest clay! Two years after this, my husband died
of typhus fever, and I had a nervous attack, from which I have never
recovered. And now, what do you say to this history of mine? For
fifteen years, I have never been free from sorrow. No sooner did one
grow so familiar to me, that I ceased to tremble at its hideousness,
than another, still more terrible, came to overwhelm me in fresh
misery. For fifteen years, my heart has never known an hour's peace;
and to the end of my life, I shall be a desolate, miserable,
broken-hearted woman. Can you understand, now, the valuelessness of my
riches, and how desolate my splendid house must seem to me? They have
been given me for no useful purpose here or hereafter; they encumber
me, and do no good to others. Who is to have them when I die?
Hospitals and schools? I hate the medical profession, and I am against
the education of the poor. I think it the great evil of the day, and I
would not leave a penny of mine to such a radical wrong. What is to
become of my wealth?'--

'Your grandson,' I interrupted hastily: 'the child of the officer.'

The old woman's face gradually softened. 'Ah! he is a lovely boy,' she
said; 'but I don't love him--no, I don't,' she repeated vehemently.
'If I set my heart on him, he will die or turn out ill: take to the
low ways of his wretched mother, or die some horrible death. I steel
my heart against him, and shut him out from my calculations of the
future. He is a sweet boy: interesting, affectionate, lovely; but I
will not allow myself to love him, and I don't allow him to love me!
But you ought to see him. His hair is like my own daughter's--lo