racter, and the sunlight of imagination loves to rest upon its
salient angles and projecting lines. When we commenced her sketch, our
sole design was to describe her influence on the minds of others, and to
make her a warning beacon to the mariners of life, that they might avoid
the shoals on which the peace of so many morbidly sensitive minds have
been wrecked. But we found a fascination in the subject which we could
not resist. A heart naturally warm, defrauded of all natural objects on
which to expend its living fervor, a mind naturally strong confined
within close and narrow limits, an energy concentrated and unwasting,
capable of carrying its possessor through every emergency and every
trial--these characteristics of a lonely woman, however poor and
unconnected she might be, have sometimes drawn us away from attractive
themes.

We do not know that Mittie can be called attractive, but she is young,
handsome and intellectual, and there is a charm in youth, beauty and
intellect that too often disarms the judgment, and renders it blind to
moral defects.

When Mittie returned from school, crowned with the laurels of the
institution in which she had graduated, wearing the stature, and
exhibiting the manners of a woman, though still in years a child, she
appeared to her young companions surrounded with a _prestige_, in whose
dazzling rays her childish faults were forgotten.

Mrs. Gleason, who had been looking forward with dread to the hour of her
step-daughter's return, met her with every demonstration of affectionate
regard. She had never seen Mittie, and as her father always spoke of her
as "the child," palliating her errors on the plea of her motherless
childhood, she was not prepared for the splendidly developed, womanly
girl, who received her kind advances with a haughty and repelling
coldness, which brought an angry flush to the father's brow.

"Mittie," said he, emphatically, "this is your _mother_. Remember that
she is to receive from all my children the respect and affection to
which she is eminently entitled."

"I know she is your wife, sir, and that her name is Mrs. Gleason, but
that does not make her a mother of mine," replied the young girl, with
surprising coolness.

"Mittie," exclaimed the father--what he would have said was averted by a
hand laid gently on his arm, and a beseeching look from the eyes of the
amiable step-mother.

"Do not constrain her to call me mother," she said. "I do not despair