tion to all the intellect and all the poetry
that ever were enshrined in the most beautiful form." And yet Philip
Hayforth certainly was not sorry that his eldest daughter--his pretty,
lively Fanny--should have turned out not only amiable and affectionate,
but clever and witty. He was, in truth, very proud of Fanny. He loved
all his children most dearly; but Fanny was the apple of his eye--the
very delight of his existence. He had now almost forgotten Emily
Sherwood; but when he did think of her, it was with indifference rather
than forgiveness. He had not heard of her since his marriage, having,
some time previous to that event, completely broken off the slight
acquaintance he had formed with her relations; while a short absence
abroad, at the time of her union with Mr. Beauchamp, had prevented him
from seeing its announcement in the papers.

Meanwhile poor Emily's married life had not been so happy as that of her
former lover. Mr. Beauchamp was of a pompous, tyrannical disposition,
and had a small, mean mind. He was constantly worrying about trifles,
perpetually taking offence with nothing, and would spend whole days in
discussing some trivial point of etiquette, in the breach of which, he
conceived himself aggrieved. A very miserable woman was his wife amid
all the cold magnificence of her stately home. Often, very often, in
her hours of loneliness and depression, her thoughts would revert to the
brief, bright days of her early love, and her spirit would be rapt away
by the recollection of that scene on the balcony, when Philip Hayforth
and she had stood with locked hands and full hearts gazing at the
sinking star and the sweetly breaking day, and loving, feeling,
thinking, as if they had but one mind between them, till the present
seemed all a fevered dream, and the past alone reality. She could not
have been deceived then: then, at least, he had loved her. Oh, had she
not wronged him? had there not been a mistake--some incident
unexplained? He had warned her that his temper was proud and jealous,
and she felt now that she ought to have written and asked an
explanation. She had thrown away her happiness, and deserved her fate.
Then she recollected that such thoughts in her, the wife of Mr.
Beauchamp, were worse than foolish--they were sinful; and the
upbraidings of her conscience added to her misery.

But Emily had a strong mind, and a lofty sense of right; and in those
solitary struggles was first developed the de