une, might give you an opportunity to
serve the cause of our persecuted sect."

"I feel under no obligations to my father's relations," replied Lucie;
"they have never shewn any interest in me; even my existence has seemed
a matter of indifference to them, and there is scarcely one to whom I
have been personally known."

"There were some peculiar circumstances connected with your father's
history," said Mad. de la Tour, "which, for a long time, involved his
nearest friends in deep affliction. He did not long survive your mother,
and his family would gladly have received you into their protection, had
not your aunt Rossville claimed you as her sister's last bequest. She
soon after became a protestant, and persisted in educating you in that
faith, which naturally gave offence to your paternal relatives; and to
that cause alone I attribute the decline of their interest. But, if you
return to France, and as the wife of De Valette,"--

"That I can never do!" interrupted Lucie;--"dearest aunt," she added, "I
would sacrifice much to gratify your wishes; but the happiness of my
whole life,--surely you would not exact that from me!"

"I exact nothing from you, Lucie," she replied; "but I would have you
consider well, before you finally reject the tried affection of De
Valette, and with it affluence and an honorable station in your native
land, merely from the impulse of a girlish fancy, which would rashly
lead you from friends and country, to share the doubtful fortunes of a
puritan; to adopt the habits of strangers, and endure the privations of
a youthful colony!"

"I have reflected on all these things," said Lucie; "and I am persuaded
that wealth and distinction are, at best, but empty substitutes for
happiness; and that the humblest lot is rich in true enjoyment, when
shared with one whose love is the fountain of our hopes, whose smile can
brighten the darkest hour, and scatter roses over the thorniest path of
life. I had rather," she added, with a glowing cheek, "far rather trust
my little bark to the guidance of affection, upon the placid stream of
domestic joy, than to launch it on the troubled waters of ambition, with
pleasure at the helm, and freighted with hopes and desires, which can
bring back no returns but those of disappointment and vexation."

"This is a dream of idle romance, which can never bear the test of
reality," said Mad. de la Tour; "and I hope you will detect its fallacy
before you are taught it by