render me. I wonder if this
be true--of course it is impossible to judge of one's self in a point
which depends so much upon the feelings. There is no animation in a
hurried or tedious toilet, and the beauty he speaks of is never given
back by the mirror. To my vision, now, this is a rather dull and
uninteresting face. I wonder if it ever does light up into anything like
beauty. Some one must have said this to my guardian. Could it have been
the young heir of Neathcote? He did not seem to look at me at all, when
he called at the school and I was frightened to death by his great,
earnest eyes; if my guardian proves half as imposing, I shall be afraid
to look up in his presence.

"There is something strange in the situation of my guardian. He is
considered one of the most eloquent men in America, and by his marriage
with the widow of a cousin, three or four times removed, is the master
of great wealth. But every dollar of it came by his wife, on whom the
son was left entirely dependent as he is now. They tell me that General
Harrington is a liberal step-father and gives the young man no reason to
complain, but it seems a little hard that all his father's great wealth
should have been swept into the possession of a comparative stranger;
for, though these two men bear one common name, and are remotely of the
same blood, they met for the first time at the wedding out of which
sprang these present rather singular relations.

"There is another strange thing about this. Mrs. Harrington can only
dispose of the property by will. She has no power to alienate it during
her life, but can bequeath it where she likes. So if the General should
outlive her, this young man may be utterly disinherited; a hard case it
seems to me, for the lady is very gentle and yielding, so devoted to her
handsome husband, that his faintest wish is a law to her. All this has
been told me from time to time, leaving such an impression of injustice
on my mind, that I fairly began to pity the young man before I saw him.
But after that, the idea of pity never entered my mind. Millions could
not enhance the nobility of his presence, or make him one shade more
interesting. His mother is said to be very beautiful. She should be, she
should be! But how foolishly I am writing about a person whom I have
never seen but once, and who seemed to have taken no interest in that
meeting, except to give me a letter from his Step-father, which will
alter my whole course of