She spoke drearily, and in the fitful flashes of the firelight the young face looked unnaturally stern.

“My dear child, you must not despond; at your age one must try to see only the bright side.  If I expected to remain in America, I would not give you up without a struggle; would beg your mother’s permission to keep you until she claimed you.  But I shall only wait to learn that Douglass has arranged for my arrival.  As you know, my sister and brother-in-law are in Egypt, and if I were with them in Cairo, I could hear more regularly and frequently from my dear boy.  I wish I could keep you, for you have grown deep into my heart, but my own future is too uncertain to allow me to involve any one else in my plans.”

“I understand the circumstances, but if mother only knew everything, I believe she would not doom me to the care of that man of stone.  Oh, if you could only take me across the ocean, and let me go to Venice to mother.”

Mrs. Lindsay tightened her arm around the erect slender figure, and gently stroked back the hair from her temples.

“My dear, you paint your future guardian too grimly.  Mr. Palma is very reserved, rather haughty, and probably stern, but notwithstanding has a noble character, I am told, and certainly appears much interested in and kindly disposed toward you.  Dear Peyton liked him exceedingly, and his two letters to me were full of generosity and kind sympathy.  As I believe I told you, his stepmother resides with him, and her daughter Miss Neville, though a young lady, will be more of a companion for you than the older members of the household.  Mr. Palma is one of the most eminent and popular lawyers in New York, is very ambitious, I have heard, and at his house you will meet the best society of that great city; by which I mean the most cultivated, high-toned, and aristocratic people.  I am sorry that he has no religious views, habits, or associations, as I inferred from the remarks of the lady whom I met in Boston, and who seemed well acquainted with the Palma household.  She told me ’none of that family had any religion, though of course they kept a pew in the fashionable church.’  But, my dear little girl, I hope your principles and rules of life are sufficiently established to preserve you from all free-thinking tendencies.  Constant attendance at church does not constitute religion, any more than the bona fide pulpit means the spiritual Gospel; but I have noticed that where genuine piety exists, it is generally united with a recognition of church duties and obligations.  The case of books I packed and sent with your trunks contains some very admirable though old-fashioned works, written by such women as Hannah More, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Opie, and others, to mould the character of girls, and instruct them in all that is requisite to make them noble, refined, intelligent, useful Christian women.  Hannah More’s ‘Lucilla Stanley’ is one of the loveliest portraitures of female excellence