rs. Fortescue, it will be necessary to take a retrospective glance on their early lives. Should it be uninteresting to the more youthful of our readers, we w

racter would have greatly ameliorated the petty vexations of her husband, died when Emmeline was only seven, Eleanor five, and Charles, her only boy an infant of but three years old. A widow lady, Mrs. Harcourt by name, had been selected by Lady Delmont, in her last il

the most difficult and painful that can be conceived-increased from the injudicious partiality of Lord Delmont. It was not indeed the culpable negligence and dislike which Eleanor afterward displayed toward her own, but originating in the fancy that Mrs. Harcourt was unjust, and Emmeline was her favorite. Lord Delmont was one of those unfortunately weak, irresolute characters, that only behold the surface of things, and are therefore utterly incapable of acting either with vigor or judgment. When he did venture into the precincts of his daughters' apartments, he generally found Eleanor in sobs and tears, and Emmeline quietly pursuing her daily duties. That Mrs. Harcourt often entreated his influence with her younger pupil, to change her course of conduct, he never re

aises, and the only one, who spoke in praise of Emmeline. It must then be willful blindness on her part; and the father felt indignant, but in spite of himself had too much real respect for her, individually, to do more than redouble his indulgence to Eleanor. Emmeline could not complain of her father's neglect, for he was both kind and affectionate to her; but she did sometimes wish she could be quite sure that he loved her as much as her sister; and her deep affections, unsuspected by her father, rejected and laughed at by Eleanor, twined themselves closer and closer round Mrs. Harcourt, and her brother Charles, on whom she actually doted, and who returned her affection with one quite as fond and warm as a happy, laughter-loving, frank-hearted boy had it in his power to bestow; yet even his holidays were times of as much suffering as joy to his sister, from the violent quarrels which were continually taking place between him and Eleano

he solitude of her own chamber, lest her temper also should fail, and, to defend her brother, she should forget her duty to her father. But with her, Mrs. Harcourt's lessons had indeed been blessed. The spirit of true, heartfelt piety, which she had sought to instill into her youthful charge, even more by the example of her daily life than by precepts, had become Emmeline's, young

ot bear. Mrs. Harcourt's trial-a widow, compelled not only to teach for a subsistence, but to part with her only child, who had been adopted by a married sister, living in Italy-appeared to Emmeline's ideas of truth and honor preferable to appearing richer than they really were. But on this subject, even less than on any other, she knew there was no chance of sympathy, and so she devoted all the energies of her matured and well-regulated mind to correcting the evil as much as it lay in her individual power; and in the year which her earnest entreaties prevailed on her father to permit her remaining in quiet retirement, before she entered the world, Lord Delmont was astonished at the greater comfort and increase of dignity which pervaded his establishment. He never had chosen Mrs. Harcourt to interfere with his household concerns, believing that he conducted them himself, when in reality he was completely governed by his housekeeper and steward. Mrs. Ha

n of the Marchioness Lascelles, their only female relative. It was the evil influence of this lady which had so increased Eleanor's natural repugnance to Mrs. Harcourt's gentle sway, that for full two years before the latter's death the flattery of Lady Lascelles and Eleanor's passionate entreaties had prevailed on Lord Delmont to permit his daughter being more with her than with her sister and governess. Lady Lascelles was a woman of the world, utterly heartless, highly distinguished, and supremely fashionable. At her house all the ton of the beau monde congregated, and scandal, frivolity,

on of superior sanctity, which of course would have been the charge leveled against her, throw a sneer upon those holy feelings and spiritual principles which had become part of her very being. She entered into society, but

ivate and confidential nature from the home government to the courts abroad, that a viscountcy was offered to his acceptance. The message from royalty reached him on his death-bed, and though, from the faint and flickering accents with which he replied to the intended honor, it seemed as if he declined it, it was attributed to the natural feelings of a dying man, seeing the utter nothingness of earthly honors, and the title was generously proposed to his son. But Arthur Hamilton had not been the pupil a

agined very little removed from insane-by others as actuated by some ulterior motive, which would be sure to display itself some day-by all regarded with curiosity-by some few with earnest, quiet, heartfelt admiration: and of this number

deepened her ardent longing, and the difficulty only strengthened her resolution, but she tried in vain; for the first time she was completely and entirely foiled, and she disliked him accordingly-a dislike increasing to actual abhorrence-whe

fe, and concluded by asking her if she could indeed accept a heart which had so loved another, but which was now entirely her own, and happier than he had once believed it ever could be. The very frankness of his avowal increased the feelings of reverence and regard he had already inspired, and to the great delight, and no little pride of Lord Delmont, his elder daughter, who had been by Lady Lascelles' coterie so overlooked and neglected, who had been by many for years consid