rl's skull and
which was the cobbler's! Lady, you must understand how this is--it's
all the same in a hundred years, according to the saying; and so
it is. None of them could tell which was the earl's, and which the
cobbler's. My skull may lie next a lady's yet, and no one tell the
difference."

The lady and child hastened from the churchyard, and the old woman
muttered, "To see that! She's not half as well to look at now as the
farmer's wife. Ah! 'All is not gold that glitters!'" How happy it is
for those who believe in the truth of this proverb, and from it learn
to be content!

It might be a week after this occurrence that Helen sent for Rose. The
lady either was, or fancied herself better, and said so, adding, it
was in her (Rose's) power to make her happier than she had ever been.
Reverting to the period when her cousin visited her in London, she
alluded to what she had suffered in becoming a mother, and yet having
her hopes destroyed by the anxiety and impetuosity of her own nature.
"At first," she said, "the trouble was anything but deep-rooted, for I
fancied God would send many more, but it was not so; and now the title
I so desired must go to the child of a woman--Oh, Rose, how I _do_
hate her!--a woman who publicly thanks God that no plebeian blood will
disgrace _my_ husband's title and _her_ family. I would peril my soul
to cause her the pain she has caused me."

"You do so now," said Rose, gently but solemnly. "Oh! think that this
violence and revenge sins your own soul, and is every way unworthy of
you."

Helen did not heed the interruption. "To add to my agony," she
continued, "my husband cherishes her son as if it were his own; the
boy stands even now between his affections and me. He has reproached
me for what he terms my insensibility to his perfections, and says
I ought to rejoice that he is so easily rendered happy--only imagine
this! Rose, you must give me your daughter, to be to me as my own.
Her beauty and sweetness will at once wean my husband's love from
this boy; and, moreover, children brought up together--do you not
see?--that boy will become attached to one of the 'plebeian blood,'
and wedding _her_ hereafter, scald to the core the proud heart of his
mother, as she has scalded mine!"

"I cannot, Helen," replied Rose, after a pause, during which her
cousin's glittering inquiring eyes were fixed upon her face--"I
cannot; I could not answer to my God at the last day for delivering
the so