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Rh attention to the education of his child, which, from the extreme solitude in which they lived, devolved entirely upon himself. Time passed without much to record till Beatrice reached her sixteenth year, when the system of oppression and extortion enforced in his native province called imperatively on Don Henriquez to take his place in the Cortez. A few weeks of bold remonstrance ended with the imprisonment of the most obnoxious members, and a heavy fine on their property. At sixteen Beatrice found herself in a large desolate house, with scarce resources enough for mere subsistence, her father in an unknown prison, her mother imbecile, and herself without friend or adviser. Zoridos had always foreseen that his daughter's position must be one of difficulty, and he had endeavoured to prepare for what he could not avert. The free spirit of the mountain girl had been sedulously encouraged; she had early learnt to think, and to know the value of self-exertion. To privation and hardship she was accustomed. She had read much; and if one work was food to the natural poetry of her imagination, and the romance nursed in her solitary life,—another taught her to reflect upon her feelings, and by