y honestly. But people will be suspicious even of the
kindest and most smoothly-speaking men; and the bland manner and
innocent, open countenance of Plausaby, Esq., could not save him from the
reproaches of uncharitable people. As he could not prove his innocence,
he had no consolation but that which is ever to be derived from a
conscience void of offense.

Isabel Marlay found herself at an early age without means. But she had
never seen a day of dependence. Deft hands, infallible taste in matters
of dress, invincible cheerfulness, and swift industry made her always
valuable. She had not been content to live in the house of her aunt, the
first Mrs. Plausaby, as a dependent, and she even refused to remain in
the undefined relation of a member of the family whose general utility,
in some sort, roughly squares the account of board and clothes at the
year's end. Whether or not she had any suspicions in regard to the
transactions of Plausaby, Esq., in the matter of her patrimony, I do not
know. She may have been actuated by nothing but a desire to have her
independence apparent. Or, she may have enjoyed--as who would
not?--having her own money to spend. At any rate, she made a definite
bargain with her uncle-in-law, by which she took charge of the sewing in
his house, and received each year a hundred dollars in cash and her
board. It was not large pay for such service as she rendered, but then
she preferred the house of a relative to that of a stranger. When the
second Mrs. Plausaby had come into the house, Mr. Plausaby had been glad
to continue the arrangement, in the hope, perhaps, that Isa's good taste
might modify that lady's love for discordant gauds.

To Albert Charlton, Isa's life seemed not to be on a very high key. She
had only a common-school education, and the leisure she had been able to
command for general reading was not very great, nor had the library in
the house of Plausaby been very extensive. She had read a good deal of
Matthew Henry, the "Life and Labors of Mary Lyon" and the "Life of
Isabella Graham," the "Works of Josephus," "Hume's History of England,"
and Milton's "Paradise Lost." She had tried to read Mrs. Sigourney's
"Poems" and Pollok's "Course of Time," but had not enjoyed them much. She
was not imaginative. She had plenty of feeling, but no sentiment, for
sentiment is feeling that has been thought over; and her life was too
entirely objective to allow her to think of her own feelings. Her
highes