her favorite playthings, and her favorite companions.  Among the latter, without a single rival, stood her young friend, Alice Goodwin, who was then about her own age.  Never was the love of sisters greater or more beautiful than that which knit the innocent hearts of those two girls together.  Their affections, in short, were so dependent upon each other that separation and absence became a source of anxiety and uneasiness to each.  Neither of them had a sister, and in the fervor of their attachment, they entered into a solemn engagement that each of them should consider herself the sister of the other.  This innocent experiment of the heart—­for such we must consider it in these two sisterless girls—­was at least rewarded by complete success.  A new affinity was superadded to friendship, and the force of imagination completed what the heart begun.

Next to Agnes was Alice Goodwin awarded a place in Mr. Hamilton’s heart.  ’Tis true he had nieces; but in consequence of the bitter and exasperating temper of their mother, who was neither more nor less than an incendiary among her relations, he had not spoken to her for years; and this fast occasioned a comparative estrangement between the families.  Sometimes, however, her nieces and she visited, and were always upon good terms; but Agnes’s heart had been preoccupied; and even if it had not, the heartless predictions of her aunt, who entertained her with the cheering and consoling information that “she had death in her face,” and that “she knew from the high color of her cheek that she would soon follow her mother,” would have naturally estranged the families.  Now, of this apprehension, above all others, it was the father’s wish that Agnes should remain ignorant; and when she repeated to him, with tears in her eyes, the merciless purport of her aunt’s observations, he replied, with a degree of calm resentment which was unusual to him, “Agnes, my love, let not anything your aunt may say alarm you in the least; she is no prophetess, my dear child.  Your life, as is that of all his creatures, is in the hands of God who gave it.  I know her avaricious and acrimonious disposition—­her love of wealth, and her anxiety to aggrandize her family.  As it is, she will live to regret the day she ever uttered those cruel words to you, my child.  You shall visit at your uncle’s no more.  Whenever the other members of her family may please to come here, we shall receive them with kindness and affection; but I will not suffer you to run the risk of listening to such unfeeling prognostications in future.”

In the meantime her health continued in a state sufficiently satisfactory to her father.  It is true an occasional alarm was felt from time to time, as a slight cold, accompanied with its hard and unusual cough, happened to supervene; but in general it soon disappeared, and in a brief space she became perfectly recovered, and free from every symptom of the dreadful malady.