little to hope, but little to dream over:
their own ambition had long since died out, but it revived in their
child. She was a link which bound them anew to this world, and seemed to
open up to them, once more, bright prospects on this side of the grave.
Often and often had they conversed upon her hopes, as they had aforetime
done of their own; and with an interest only heightened from having
become less selfish. Was it remarkable that they should do so on that
evening? Jessie was growing to a most interesting age. She had arrived
at that point in life from which many roads diverge, and where the path
is often difficult to choose. For her sake, more than one homely hind
had become a poet in his feelings. Indeed, she had many admirers, and
was even what some might call a flirt. But, although her smiles were
shed like the free and glad sunshine on all, there was one who, to
appearance, was more favoured than the rest. This young man had known
her from her childhood, and his attachment was of the most ardent kind.
At school, he had been her champion, and certainly showed himself a true
knight--ready to encounter, nay, courting danger for her sake, and
conceiving himself sufficiently rewarded by her smile. She had recently
been solicited in marriage by another, a man of retired and somewhat
gloomy habits, who dwelt near; but it was understood that she had
refused his offer, and that George Merrideth was the chosen one of her
heart.

It was on these things that the unconscious parents were conversing,
when one of their neighbours entered with the frightful intelligence.
Both started up and rushed to the door. The crowd were hastening on,
bearing with them the melancholy evidence of the truth of what they had
just heard. It came on still--it stopt--it was at their own door it
stopt. The old man could not speak, but his wife rushed forward with a
distressful shriek. The truth was soon all known. They had no child.
They had only a dead body to weep over--to lay in the grave. Is it
necessary to say more? A few days passed. They were the bitterest days
the bereaved parents had ever known; but they passed, and their minds
became comparatively calm. Neither the efforts of their own minds, nor
the commiseration of their friends and neighbours, could subdue their
grief: but it took free vent, and subsided from very exhaustion. They
evinced but little anxiety to discover who had destroyed their child: it
was enough to them that she wa