After chatting some little time with Frederic and Clary, Anthony retired to the room appropriated to his use.

The quiet, unobtrusive kindness of his young relatives had done much to soothe and tranquillize his mind; and he almost wished, as he paced to and fro the narrow limits of his airy little chamber, that he could forget that he had ever known and loved the beautiful and fascinating Juliet Whitmore.

“Why should mere beauty possess such an influence over the capricious wandering heart of man?” he thought; “yet it is not beauty alone that makes me prefer Juliet to the rest of her sex.  Her talents, her deep enthusiasm, captivate me more than her handsome face and graceful form.  Oh, Juliet!  Juliet! why did we ever meet? or is Godfrey destined to enact the same tragedy that ruined my uncle’s peace, and consigned my mother to an early grave?”

As these thoughts passed rapidly through his mind, his eyes rested upon his mother’s picture.  It was the first time that he had ever beheld her but in dreams.  Radiant in all its girlish beauty, the angelic face smiled down upon him with life-like fidelity.  The rose that decked her dark floating locks, less vividly bright than the glowing cheeks and lips of happy youth; the large black eyes, “half languor and half fire,” that had wept tears of unmitigated anguish over his forlorn infancy—­rested upon his own, as if they were conscious of his presence.  Anthony continued to gaze upon the portrait till the blinding tears hid it from his sight.

“Oh, my mother!” he exclaimed, “better had it been for thee to have died in the bloom of youth and innocence, than to have fallen the victim of an insidious—­villain,” he would have added, but that villain was his father; and he paused without giving utterance to the word, shocked at himself that his heart had dared to frame the impious word his conscience forbade him to speak.

What a host of melancholy thoughts crowded into his mind while looking on that picture.  The grief and degradation of his early days:  his dependent situation while with his uncle:  the unkind taunts of his ungenerous cousin; his blighted affections and dreary prospects for the future.  How bitterly did he ponder over these!

What had he to encourage hope, or give him strength to combat with the ills that beset him on every side?  Homeless and friendless, he thought, like Clary, that death would be most welcome, and sinking upon his knees, he prayed long and fervently for strength to bear with manly fortitude the sorrows which from his infant years had been his bitter portion.

Who ever sought counsel of God in vain?  An answer of peace was given to his prayers.  “Endure thou unto the end, and I will give thee a crown of life.”  He rose from his knees, and felt that all was right; that his present trials were awarded to him in mercy; that had all things gone on smoother with him, like Godfrey, he might have yielded himself up to sinful pleasures, or followed in the footsteps of his father, and bartered his eternal happiness for gold.