to the
greatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be
made to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl the misfortune
was aggravated greatly by the peculiarities of the father's
character. Mr. Amedroz was not a bad man,--as men are held to be bad
in the world's esteem. He was not vicious,--was not a gambler or a
drunkard,--was not self-indulgent to a degree that brought upon him
any reproach; nor was he regardless of his children. But he was an
idle, thriftless man, who, at the age of sixty-seven, when the reader
will first make his acquaintance, had as yet done no good in the
world whatever. Indeed he had done terrible evil; for his son Charles
was now dead,--had perished by his own hand,--and the state of things
which had brought about this woful event had been chiefly due to the
father's neglect.

Belton Castle is a pretty country seat, standing in a small
but beautifully wooded park, close under the Quantock hills in
Somersetshire; and the little town of Belton clusters round the park
gates. Few Englishmen know the scenery of England well, and the
prettinesses of Somersetshire are among those which are the least
known. But the Quantock hills are very lovely, with their rich
valleys lying close among them, and their outlying moorlands running
off towards Dulverton and the borders of Devonshire,--moorlands which
are not flat, like Salisbury Plain, but are broken into ravines and
deep watercourses and rugged dells hither and thither; where old oaks
are standing, in which life seems to have, dwindled down to the last
spark; but the last spark is still there, and the old oaks give forth
their scanty leaves from year to year.

In among the hills, somewhat off the high road from Minehead to
Taunton, and about five miles from the sea, stands the little town,
or village, of Belton, and the modern house of Mr. Amedroz, which
is called Belton Castle. The village,--for it is in truth no more,
though it still maintains a charter for a market, and there still
exists on Tuesdays some pretence of an open sale of grain and
butcher's meat in the square before the church-gate,--contains
about two thousand persons. That and the whole parish of Belton did
once,--and that not long ago,--belong to the Amedroz family. They had
inherited it from the Beltons of old, an Amedroz having married the
heiress of the family. And as the parish is large, stretching away to
Exmoor on one side, and almost to the sea on th