as impossible for
Algernon Hurdlestone to escape from the contaminating influence of his
uncle, to whom he was strongly attached, without pollution. He imbibed
from him a relish for trifling amusements and extravagant expenditure,
which clung to him through life. The sudden death of his misjudging
instructor recalled him to a painful sense of past indiscretions. He
determined to amend his ways, and make choice of some profession, and
employ his time in a more honorable manner for the future. These serious
impressions scarcely survived the funeral of the thoughtless man whose
death he sincerely lamented; but the many debts his uncle had
contracted, and the exhausted state of his purse, urged upon him the
imperative necessity of returning to England; and the voyage was
undertaken accordingly.

CHAPTER II.

The steel strikes fire from the unyielding flint:
So love has struck from out that flinty heart
The electric spark, which all but deifies
The human clay.--S.M.

About two years after Algernon Hurdlestone left the Hall, a widow lady
and her daughter came to reside at Ashton, and hired a small cottage,
pleasantly situated at the back of the park.

Mrs. Wildegrave's husband had been engaged in the rebellion of 1745; and
his estates, in consequence, were confiscated, and he paid with his life
the forfeit of his rashness. His widow and child, after many years of
sorrow and destitution, and living as dependents upon the charity of
poor relatives, were enabled to break through this painful bondage, and
procure a home for themselves.

An uncle of Mrs. Wildegrave's, who had been more than suspected of
favoring the cause of the unhappy prince, died, and settled upon his
niece all the property he had to bestow, which barely afforded her an
income of fifty pounds a year. This was but a scanty pittance, it is
true; but it was better than the hard-earned bread of dependence, and
sufficient for the wants of two females.

Mrs. Wildegrave, whose health had been for some years in a declining
state, thought that the air of her native place might have a beneficial
effect upon her shattered constitution; and as years had fled away since
the wreck of all her hopes, she no longer felt the painful degradation
of returning to the place in which she had once held a distinguished
situation, and had been regarded as its chief ornament and pride.

Her people, save a younger brother of her husband's, who held a
lucr