rank from the new condition under
which life was presenting itself to him. When at length his resources
utterly failed, and he could no longer veil the truth from his wife, her
gentle tender smile, her confiding caress, and above all, her ready
inquiry into his plans for the future, and her earnest effort to aid him
in bringing the chaos of his mind into order, taught him that there lies
in woman's affections a source of strength equal to all the requirements
of those who have won their way to that hidden fountain. It was by her
advice that, instead of wasting his energies in the vain struggle to
maintain his present position, he determined to carve out for himself a
new life in another land. The first step towards the fulfilment of this
resolution was also the most painful. It was the sacrifice of his home,
the home of his childhood, his youth, his manhood, with which all that
was dear in the present or tender in the past was associated. And yet
higher claims it had. It had been the home of his fathers. For three
hundred years those walls had owned a Devoe for their master, and now
they must pass into a stranger's hands, and he and his must go forth
with no right even to a grave in that soil which had seemed ever an
inalienable part of himself. It was a stern lesson, but life teaches
well, and it was learned. He could not turn to the liberal professions
for support, because he had no means of maintaining himself and his
family during the preparatory studies. Of farming he knew already
something, and spent some months in acquiring yet further information
respecting it, before he sailed from England. The determination and
energy with which Gerald Devoe had entered on his new career, had won
for him friends among practical men, and when he left England it was
with recommendations that insured his success.

It was a fortunate circumstance for Mr. and Mrs. Devoe that Mr.
Trevanion required a farm-steward on their arrival, for in him and his
wife they found liberal employers, and persons of true Christian
benevolence, who, having discovered the superiority of their minds and
manners to their present station, hesitated not to receive them into
their circle of friends, when a knowledge of their past history had
acquainted them with their claims on their sympathy. Howsoever valuable
the friendship of persons at once so accomplished and so excellent was
to Mr. and Mrs. Devoe, for their own sakes, they prized it yet more for
thei