t your cousin, love,
as you ought."

The child arose, made a stiff bend of her shoulders, and said, "I hope
to see you well, Miss Alice Orville."

Alice returned her salute with a graceful courtesy, and all resumed
their seats.

"Now," said Mrs. Camford, "this dreaded ceremony of presentation is
over, I hope we may get on well together. I'm desirous, Miss Orville,
that you should commence tuition at the seminary immediately. I shall
have no pains spared to afford you a fashionable education. As my
deceased brother's only child, I would have this much done at my own
expense. I always told Ernest, though he married a poor girl from the
north, and went off there to live with her, much against the wishes of
our parents, that I would never see a child of his suffer."

"I have never suffered, madam!" said Alice, quickly.

"For food and clothes I suppose not, Miss Orville," said Mrs. Camford,
loftily; "but my nerves are all shattered by this long confab, and I
will now retire, leaving you young people to cultivate each other's
acquaintance. Thisbe, carry me to my private apartment!"

And Thisbe lifted her delicate mistress in her arms, and tugged her from
the room; an operation that reminded one, not of a "mountain laboring to
bring forth a mouse," but of a mouse laboring to bring forth a mountain.

Days and weeks past by, and Alice was not so unhappy as she feared she
would be from her first experience. The "belle and beauty" returned from
the city of Mobile, under escort of Mr. Gilbert, who proved to be the
fair Celestina's _fiancee_. And Wayland Morris was a frequent visitor.
He often invited Alice to walk over different portions of the city.
There was an old ruinous French chateau to which they were wont to
direct their steps almost every Saturday evening when the weather was
pleasant; and to walk with Morris, gaze into his deep blue eyes, and
listen to his eloquent voice as he recited to her old tales and legends
of long ago from his well-stored, imaginative brain, was becoming more
than life to Alice. Perhaps she did not quite know it then. Whoever
knows the value of a blessing till it is withdrawn? Ah! and when we wake
some morning to find our hearts left desolate, how earnestly and
tearfully do we beg its return, with fervent promises never to drive it
from our bosoms, or scorn and slight it again! But does it ever come?
Alas, no!

CHAPTER IV.

"O, know ye the land