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her countenance changed to a look of anxiety, as resting her head on her clasped hands, she seemed to give herself up to deep and painful thoughts. She was trying to realize her position, days of childhood came before her—a home, a mother, young affections, strong and cherished, and then a blank—parents, brother, all swept away, and she the ward of Baron Sampson. Not a burden, for she inherited the wealth, that to one so young was valueless; but no longer the child of Home, not uncared for, but unloved. Her school days had not been unhappy; she found warm friends in some of her companions, and an able guide in her instructress, and by her own desire she remained at school till she was nineteen. Then the Baroness claimed her with an unaccountable eagerness. She was courted, flattered, petted; but the instincts of youth are even clearer than the experience of age. She felt the falseness of the atmosphere in which she lived, all was false, the Baron's courtesy, the Baroness's caresses, the attentions of Cousin Moses. "We