rie and Rosalie with her
fond glance.

"Grandpa's shoulders ought to be very broad to support so many
descendants," said Ellen, looking scornfully at their beautiful guest.
"Henry, why do you not aspire to so distinguished a relationship?"

"People often aspire to that which they can not attain," said Henry,
with a look of quiet but deep earnestness at Jennie, whose eyes sunk
under his gaze, and whose heart swelled with emotion at the thought of
her own isolated fate. "No father, no mother, no kindred," felt she,
"and even the love of this weak old man grudged me by one who has all!"
She said nothing more while the visitors remained, but sat with the
palsied hand in her soft palm, dreaming of the time when she should be
gathered into the bosom of a ransomed family, and her spirit grew calm
with the thought, so that when Rosalie and the young men arose to
leave, and asked her to join them in a little excursion on the morrow,
she answered them with a beaming and glad face.

"Fred," said Henry, as they left the gate, "I never can forget that
face. Did you see how almost heavenly it was as she stood by old Mr.
Halberg when we left?"

"It was indeed a lovely picture," said Fred; "the old bowed head with
the evening's breath moving the gray hair, and that delicate girl, with
her white dress glistening in the moonbeams, and with the seraphic
expression on her brow!"

CHAPTER XXII.

"Eleanor," said Mr. Halberg to his wife, after the young people had
retired to rest, "there is something very singular about that girl. She
is so like our departed Jane that she awakens my deepest interest. Did
you notice her manners, at once so child-like and so mature? I must
inquire more particularly about her of Mrs. Dunmore; it strikes me she
is no common child."

"I paid no especial attention to her," replied the wife; "she is
sufficiently long under the influence of a refined example to overcome
all taint of birth and early habit, however."

"I tell you, wife," said the husband, "there's an innate pride and
dignity about the girl that no training could effect. I watched her all
the evening, and could detect nothing but the most perfect ease and
grace. Her face, too, haunts me. Do you remember how pure and earnest
the expression of Jane's eye was? Well, there's the same look in that
young girl's, so that I longed to take her to my heart and call her
sister. If we had not learned with such apparent certainty about the
death o