nor him for it, and I ask God daily to make me
worthy to be the child of such a parent."

"Well, my dear," cooly replies mamma, "if it will afford you any
satisfaction to hear it, you resemble him in every respect. In fact, I
see more plainly every day, there is not a trait of the Leveridge's
about you, deeply as I deplore it. I had hoped to have a daughter after
my own heart. I sometimes think you do not wish to please me in
anything."

"Oh!" cried Clemence, "how greatly you misunderstand me. You do not know
how much I love you. I have often wished that we were poor, so I could
have you all to myself, to show, by a lifetime of devotion, what is in
my heart."

The delicate lady, splendid in misty lace and jewels, gave a little
nervous shudder at the bare thought of poverty.

"What strange fancies you have, child, and how little you know of the
realities of life." But gazing into the pure face, with a vague dread
for that future, and knowing that One alone knew whether it might
contain happiness or misery for her darling, she said, with visible
emotion, "You are a good girl, Clemence, and whatever may be in the
future, remember that I always sought your welfare as the one great
object of my existence. Always remember that, Clemence."

"I will, my own dearest mother," the girl answered brokenly; and neither
could see the other through a mist of tears.

Was it a presentiment of their coming fate?

Clemence thought often, amid the gloom that followed, that it was; and
many times in her dream-haunted slumbers, murmured, "Always remember
that, Clemence; always remember that."

If the stylish Mrs. Graystone, who could boast of the most aristocratic
descent, and whose haughty family had considered it quite a
condescension when she married the self-made merchant--if the little
lady had sinned very deeply in wishing to secure for her only child a
husband in every way suitable, in her opinion, to a descendant of the
Leveridges of Leveridge, she was destined to a full expiation of her
wrong, and her towering pride to a fall so great that those who had
envied her her life-long prosperity, would say with ill-concealed
delight--"served them right! what will become of their lofty ambition
and refined sensibilities now, I wonder?"--"I knew it would not last
forever."--"It's a long lane that never turns;" with many more remarks
to the same effect.

"Between you and me and the four walls of this room," said one Mrs.
Crane to h