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62 forth an unfettered warrior against his country's enemies. But what took Lorraine three weeks to learn, may be told in three minutes. Margaretta Fortescue was the very sweetest little sylph that ever was spoiled by being a beauty and an only child. The last of one of our noblest Norman families, who, from professing the Catholic faith, lived much to themselves—a whole household seemed made but for her pleasure. The first suspicion that even a wish could exist contrary to her own, was when she fell in love with the handsome and stately Spaniard Don Henriquez de los Zoridos, who had made their house his home during his visit to England. The high birth, splendid fortune, and answering creed of her lover, overcame even the objection to his being a foreigner. Margaretta was married; her parents accompanied her abroad; and for four years more her life was like a fairy tale. Its first sorrow was the death of her father. From her great to her small scale Fate repeats her revolutions. Families, as well as nations, would seem to have their epochs of calamity. Thus it proved with the Zoridos. The sunny cycle of their years was past, and the shadows fell the darker for their former brightness.