“Is His Son a little boy, and will he be fond of my mother?” I asked.  “Will she love him too?  Oh, she loved me so much, so much!” and, in an agony of grief, I caught Miss Glen around the neck, and sobbed convulsively on her sympathetic breast.  Again Evelyn smiled, I suppose, for I heard Miss Glen say, rebukingly: 

“My dear Miss Erle, you must not make light of your little sister’s sufferings.  They are very severe, I doubt not, young as she is.  All the more so that she does not know how to express them.”

Revolving these words, I came later to know their import.  They seemed unmeaning to me at the time, but the kind and deprecating tone of voice in which they were conveyed was unmistakable, and that sufficed to reassure me.

“And now, Miriam, let me go to my room and take off my bonnet and shawl, for I am going to stay with you.  Perhaps you will show me the way yourself,” she said, pausing.  “Bring Dolly, too;” and we walked off hand-in-hand together to the large, commodious chamber Mrs. Austin pointed out as that prepared for our governess.  I recognized my affinity from that hour.

There, sitting on her knee, with her gentle hand on my hair, and her sweet eyes fixed on mine, I learned at once to love Miss Glen, or “Constance,” as she made us call her, because her surname seemed over-formal.  She wished us to regard her as an elder sister, she said, rather than mere instructress, deeming rightly that the law of love would prove the stronger and better guidance in our case, and understanding well, and by some line magnetic sympathy as it appeared, my own peculiar nature, to which affection was a necessity.

Ours was a peaceful and happy childhood under her gentle and fostering rule; and, when it ceased, all the wires of life seemed jangled and discordant again.

She lived with us three years as friend and teacher.  At the end of that time her vocation and sphere of action were enlarged, not changed, for she married my father, and thus our future welfare seemed secured.

Alas for human foresight!  Alas for affection powerless to save!  Alas for the vanity of mortal effort to contend with Fate!

Our home was in one of the chief Northern cities of that great republic which has for so many years commanded the admiration, respect, and wonder, of the whole world.  The house we occupied was situated in the old and fashion-forsaken portion of the city.  From its upper windows a view of the majestic Delaware and its opposite shores was afforded to the spectator; and the grounds surrounding the mansion were spacious for those of a city-house, and deeply shaded by elms that had been lofty trees in the time of General Washington.

Four squares farther on, the roar of commerce swelled and surged, in storehouse and counting-room, on mart and shipboard and quay; but here all was quiet, calm, secluded, as in the country, miles beyond.

Two houses besides our own shared the whole square between them, though ours, the central one, possessed the largest inclosure, and was the finest residence of the three, architecturally speaking; and the inmates of these dwellings, with very few exceptions, constituted for years our whole circle of friends and visitors.