th earnestness.
"And the recollection of the past"--

"Must heighten anticipations for the future, my dear girl, or I must
sentence them to perpetual banishment. Condemn them never to be
recalled," interrupted Mrs. Hamilton, still more playfully, and then
added--

"Emmeline, have you no wish to know how the object of your kind
sympathy, poor Lilla, parted from her father and me to day?"

"I quite forgot all about it, mamma; this Oakwood hour has made me so
selfish. I thought of no one but ourselves," replied Emmeline. "Gratify
my curiosity now. Did Lady Helen evince any sorrow at the separation?"

"Not so much as, for Lilla's sake, I could have wished. She has been so
unfortunately prejudiced against her both by Annie and Miss Malison,
that although I am convinced she loves her child, she never will evince
any proof of it; and Lilla's unhappy temperament has, of course,
increased this prejudice, which I fear will require years to remove,
unless Annie be soon married, and Miss Malison removed from Lady
Helen's establishment. Then Lilla's really excellent qualities will
quickly be made evident."

"Mr. Grahame is already convinced she is a very different girl to that
she has been represented, is he not?" asked Ellen.

"He is; and I trust, from the awakened knowledge, happiness is dawning
upon them both. I could not see unmoved his struggle to part with her
to-day, brief as the separation will be--scarcely six short months."

"I was quite sure Mr. Grahame loved his children, though Annie and Cecil
did say so much about his sternness," said Emmeline, somewhat
triumphantly.

"Mr. Grahame's feelings are naturally the very wannest, but
disappointment in some of his dearest hopes has, in some cases,
unfortunately caused him to veil them; I regret this, both for Cecil and
Lilla's sake, as I think, had he evinced greater interest and affection
for them in their childish years, they might both have been different in
character."

"But it is not too late now?"

"I trust not for Lilla, but I greatly fear, from all I have heard, that
Cecil's character is already formed. Terrified at his father's
harshness, he has always shrunk from the idea of making him his friend,
and has associated only with the young men of his mother's family, who,
some few years older than himself, and devoted to fashion, and gay
amusements, are not the very best companions he could have selected, but
whose near relationship seems to have prevented a