to give her pain. I never sat with him
on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's
hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened
glance.

At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,--

"Wait till I go for Edith."

"Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that
pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence
of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let
the whole world come."

"It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,--I cannot bear the soft reproach
of her loving eye!"

"A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply. "All
that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are
gifts she may not share,--an inner temple she cannot enter,--reserved
alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars
their lustre!"

How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And
how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never
imagined before that a sister's love could be _jealous_; but the same
hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's
blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.

Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant
family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and
blossoms,--traits which, descending from parent to children,
individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride
towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches
taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank
and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the
winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself
with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round
Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.

And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the
solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it
said,--"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,--so was her mother before
her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,--he came from a noble stock."
"That youth has a sacred love of truth,--it is his best
inheritance,--his father's word was equivalent to his bond."

If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding
manner. Let them rend out the eye that