t for him who had just left
her, but for some kindred association that his presence aroused.

The villa where we have introduced the reader was that of the late
Edward Huntington, a successful English merchant, who had resided many
years in India and had realized a fortune, which he had proposed to
return to his native land to enjoy with his wife and only child. But
death had stepped in to put an abrupt end to his hopes, and to render
abortive all his well-arranged plans, some twelve months previous to
the period of which we have spoken. Mrs. Huntington, the widow, had
remained in Calcutta to settle up her husband's affairs, and this done,
she determined to embark at once with her daughter for England, where
her relatives, friends and early associations were all located.

Miss Huntington, as the reader may have gathered, was no coquette; her
great beauty and real loveliness of character had challenged the
admiration of many a rich grandee and many an eminent character among
her own countrymen in this distant land. But no one had seemed to mate
the least impression upon her heart; the gayest and wittiest found in
her one quite their equal; the thoughtful and pathetic were equally at
home by her side; but her heart, to them, seemed encased in iron, so
cold and immovable it continued to all the assaults that gallantry made
against its fastness, and yet no one who knew her really doubted the
tenderness of her feelings and the sensibility of her heart.

Her beauty was quite matured--that is she must have numbered at least
twenty years; but there was still a girlish loveliness, a childlike
parity and sincerity in all she said and did, that showed the real
freshness of her heart and innocence of her mind. Far too pure and good
and gentle was she for him who had so earnestly sued for her hand, as we
have seen. Beneath a gentlemanly exterior, that other, whom we have seen
depart from her side under such peculiar circumstances, hid a spirit of
petty meanness and violence of temper, a soul that hardly merited the
name, and which made him enemies everywhere, friends nowhere.

Robert Bramble--for this was he, the same whom the reader has seen as a
boy at home in Bramble Park--had not improved in spirit or manliness by
advance in years. The declining pecuniary fortune of his father's house,
to which we have before alluded, had led him early to seek employment in
the navy, and by dint of influence and attention to his profession, he