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Rh surround myself with household duties and cares; surely I shall find happiness in their fulfilment. The lowliest roof is better than my precarious and dependent situation.' Alas, she had been too delicately nurtured for the reverse; and the very day twelvemonth of being a bride saw her carried along the same green grass-path to the same churchyard. She left a daughter, who was adopted by Lady Evelyn, to share a like fate with her mother; for when I saw Lucy Aylmer, her protectress was dead, and she had returned to her father's house, with a pale cheek and languid step, which showed how little her heart was there.

"Of a surety it is folly to say that our lots in life are cast, each even with its neighbour; there are some to whom sorrow is an heritage. Lord Avonleigh loved not his sister better than I did mine; but to him it was given to see her pass from her first happy home to another, and but the lovelier and more be loved for the change. I saw mine condemned to one most unworthy of her grace and beauty, where she pined away,—a fair flower taken from its native soil, and taken to perish. And say not that we fancied and dwelt overmuch on the evils of our condition; that we were in reality more fortunate than our rebellious hearts would allow. Was it nothing that from