ad only the resource of applying
to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugitive had before seized many
opportunities of not leaving wholly unprepared for such an application.
Rowland promptly and generously obeyed the summons: he took the child
and the wife to his own home,--he freed the latter from the persecution
of all legal claimants,--and, after selling such effects as remained, he
devoted the whole proceeds to the forsaken family, without regarding his
own expenses on their behalf, ill as he was able to afford the luxury
of that self-neglect. The wife did not long need the asylum of his
hearth,--she, poor lady, died of a slow fever produced by irritation and
disappointment, a few months after Geoffrey's desertion. She had no need
to recommend her children to their kindhearted uncle's care. And now we
must glance over the elder brother's domestic fortunes.

In Rowland, the wild dispositions of his brother were so far tamed, that
they assumed only the character of a buoyant temper and a gay spirit. He
had strong principles as well as warm feelings, and a fine and resolute
sense of honour utterly impervious to attack. It was impossible to be
in his company an hour and not see that he was a man to be respected. It
was equally impossible to live with him a week and not see that he was a
man to be beloved. He also had married, and about a year after that era
in the life of his brother, but not for the same advantage of fortune.
He had formed an attachment to the portionlesss daughter of a man in his
own neighbourhood and of his own rank. He wooed and won her, and for a
few years he enjoyed that greatest happiness which the world is capable
of bestowing--the society and the love of one in whom we could wish
for no change, and beyond whom we have no desire. But what Evil cannot
corrupt Fate seldom spares. A few months after the birth of a second
daughter the young wife of Rowland Lester died. It was to a widowed
hearth that the wife and child of his brother came for shelter. Rowland
was a man of an affectionate and warm heart: if the blow did not crush,
at least it changed him. Naturally of a cheerful and ardent disposition,
his mood now became soberized and sedate. He shrunk from the rural
gaieties and companionship he had before courted and enlivened, and, for
the first time in his life, the mourner felt the holiness of solitude.
As his nephew and his motherless daughters grew up, they gave an object
to his seclusion an