es Halliday, or the Masters Burton: they had flirted
and danced, and danced and flirted indiscriminately; but as to serious
engagements--pooh! pooh!

Who would have conjectured the romance of reality that was now
divulged? and how could we have been so stupid as not to have read it
at a glance? These contradictory exclamations, as is usual in such
cases, ensued when the riddle was unfolded. It is so easy to be wise
when we have learned the wisdom. Yet we cheerfully lost our wager, and
would have lost a hundred such, for the sake of hearing a tale so far
removed from matter-of-fact; proving also that enduring faith and
affection are not so fabulous as philosophers often pronounce them to
be.

Bessie Prudholm was nearly related to David Danvers, and she had been
the only child of a talented but improvident father, who, after a
short, brilliant career as a public singer, suddenly sank into
obscurity and neglect, from the total loss of his vocal powers,
brought on by a violent rheumatic cold and lasting prostration of
strength. At this juncture, Bessie had nearly attained her twentieth
year, and was still in mourning for an excellent mother, by whom she
had been tenderly and carefully brought up. From luxury and indulgence
the descent to poverty and privation was swift. Bessie, indeed,
inherited a very small income in right of her deceased parent,
sufficient for her own wants, and even comforts, but totally
inadequate to meet the thousand demands, caprices, and fancies of her
ailing and exigeant father. However, for five years she battled
bravely with adversity, eking out their scanty means by her
exertions--though, from her father's helpless condition, and the
constant and unremitting attention he required, she was in a great
measure debarred from applying her efforts advantageously. The poor,
dying man, in his days of health, had contributed to the enjoyment of
the affluent, and in turn been courted by them; but now, forgotten and
despised, he bitterly reviled the heartless world, whose hollow meed
of applause it had formerly been the sole aim of his existence to
secure. Wealth became to his disordered imagination the desideratum of
existence, and he attached inordinate value to it, in proportion as
he felt the bitter stings of comparative penury. To guard his only
child--whom he certainly loved better than anything else in the world,
save himself--from this dreaded evil, the misguided man, during his
latter days, extr