capacity, his liberality, and his unswerving rectitude, was unquestionably the man to whom more people applied for advice and assistance than to any other in Whiteburn. In municipal matters, and on public questions, his judgment was always of great weight; it might, indeed, at one time have been said to be paramount. But that was before he had retired from business. He had not married until he was forty-five, by which time he had nearly doubled the fortune he had inherited twenty years before. The lady of his choice was a refined, fragile woman, no longer in her first youth, who bad been a governess, and had lived a great deal in France. The change from a clear sky that did not rain blacks, to the poisonous air, and canopy of smoke and cloud that were the inalienable property of Whiteburn, was afflicting to Mrs. Shaw. But she never complained. It was Anthony's unsolicited doing—the removal to that old timbered mansion, which stood folded away among the hills aloof from the blackness of the town. Here lived for fourteen years Anthony's helpmeet and worthy companion, and died, leaving an only child of twelve years to the sorrowing father's care. To both, the disappointment of having no son had been great; to Anthony it meant the alteration of all the plans he had built for the future. His brother had no child; his kindred were all dead, or dispersed beyond the seas; there was no one to succeed him in his prosperous business. Before his wife died, he began to entertain the idea of forming the concern into a company; but it was not till some years later that he actually retired.
Until her mother's death, Elizabeth had been educated
