as to prevent your bestowing on Him but one hour of your day.  Let me clasp my child to my heart, when we return to Oakwood, unsullied, untouched by the stains of the world.  Let me have the blessed comfort of seeing my Caroline return to the home of her childhood the same innocent happy being she was when she left.  I have ever endeavoured to make you happy, to give you those pleasures you naturally desire, to form your character not only for the happiness of this world, but for that of the next; then if you are ever tempted to do wrong, if no higher consideration bids you pause, think on your mother, Caroline; remember my happiness or misery greatly depends on you, and, oh, if you have ever loved me, pause ere you proceed.”

“Mother, do not doubt me; Caroline Hamilton will never sully the name she bears,” replied Caroline, her eye flashing, and speaking proudly, to conceal the emotion her mother’s words had involuntarily produced.

Mrs. Hamilton gazed on the haughty and satisfied security the features of her child expressed.  A more softened feeling would at that moment better have pleased the yearning heart of the mother, but she checked the rising sigh of disappointment, and folding Caroline to her bosom, she imprinted a fond kiss on her noble brow, and murmuring, “God in heaven bless you, my child, and grant you sufficient strength,” they descended the stairs together.

Brilliant indeed was the scene that met the dazzled eyes of Caroline, as she entered the elegant suite of rooms of the Duchess of Rothbury.  The highest rank, the greatest talent, the loveliest of beauty’s daughters, the manliest and noblest of her sons, were all assembled in that flood of light which every apartment might be termed.  Yet could the varied countenances of these noble crowds have clearly marked the character within, what a strange and varied page in the book of human life might that ball have unfolded.

But various as are the characters that compose an assemblage such as this, the tone is generally given by the character and manner of the lady of the house, and her Grace the Duchess of Rothbury was admirably fitted for the position she filled.  A daughter of fashion, bred up from her earliest years in scenes of luxury and pomp, she had yet escaped the selfishness, the artificial graces, which are there generally predominant.  She had married early in life, a marriage a la mode, that is to say, not of love, but of interest on the part of her parents, and on her own, dazzled, perhaps, by the exalted rank of the man who had made her an offer of his hand.  They were happy.  The highly-principled mind of the Duchess revolted from that conduct which would, even in the on dit of a censorious world, have called the very faintest whisper on her name; and her husband, struck by the unwavering honour and integrity of her conduct, gradually deserted the haunts of ignoble pleasures which he had been wont to frequent,