her. Did the grave chancellor, then--some one,
who in his way, also, is very grave, may ask--did he, by constant
fondness, _spoil_ his child? No. It is the fondness which is _not_
constant that spoils. It is the half-love of weak and irritable
natures, who are themselves children amongst their children, who can
themselves be petulant, selfish, and capricious--it is this that mars
a temper. But calm and unalterable love--oh, believe it not that such
ever spoilt a child! Maria grew up under the eye of affection, and the
ever-open hand of paternal love; and she herself seemed to have
learned no other impulses but those of affection and generosity.

Alas for fathers! when the child grows into the budding woman, and by
her soft, intelligent companionship fills the house with gladness, and
the heart with inappreciable content, then comes the gay, permitted
spoiler--comes the lover with his suit--his honourable suit--and robs
them of their treasure. The world feels only with the lover--with the
youth, and the fair maiden that he wins. For the bereaved parent, not
a thought! No one heeds the sigh that breaks from him, as, amidst
festivities and mirth, and congratulatory acclamations, he sees his
daughter, with all her prized affections, borne off from him, in
triumph, for ever.

There was, on this occasion, in the manner of Laski towards his child,
an evident sadness. It was not that the political horizon was
darkening; he had never permitted _that_ to throw its gloom over his
companionship with his daughter. It was because he had grounds to
believe that the events which threatened the tranquillity of Poland
threatened also the peace of his daughter, whose affections he had
divined were no longer exclusively his own.

She, observing his emotion, and attributing it to some untoward event
in the political world, could not refrain from expressing the wish
that he would quit the harassing affairs of state, and live wholly in
his home.

"I would long since have done so," he replied, "if personal happiness
had been the sole aim of my existence. But I have a taskwork to
accomplish--one, I think, which God, by fitting me thereto, has
pointed out as mine. Else it is indeed here, with thee beside me, that
I find all that can bear the name of happiness. The rest of life is
but sternest duty--strife, hostility, contempt. But away with this
gloomy talk--what gossip is there stirring in your idle world, Maria?"

"Pray, is there war fo