ica on a visit, and the child was sent back, under her
care, while still a mere infant, to her relatives at the old homestead.
During the long voyage, the strange mystery of the ocean was wrought
into her consciousness so deeply, that it seemed to have become a part
of her being. The waves rocked her, as if the sea had been her mother;
and, looking over the vessel's side from the arms that held her with
tender care, she used to watch the play of the waters, until the rhythm
of their movement became a part of her, almost as much as her own pulse
and breath.

The instincts and qualities belonging to the ancestral traits which
predominated in the conflict of mingled lives lay in this child in
embryo, waiting to come to maturity. It was as when several grafts,
bearing fruit that ripens at different times, are growing upon the same
stock. Her earlier impulses may have been derived directly from her
father and mother, but all the ancestors who have been mentioned, and
more or less obscurely many others, came uppermost in their time, before
the absolute and total result of their several forces had found
its equilibrium in the character by which she was to be known as an
individual. These inherited impulses were therefore many, conflicting,
some of them dangerous. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil held
mortgages on her life before its deed was put in her hands; but sweet
and gracious influences were also born with her; and the battle of life
was to be fought between them, God helping her in her need, and her own
free choice siding with one or the other. The formal statement of this
succession of ripening characteristics need not be repeated, but the
fact must be borne in mind.

This was the child who was delivered into the hands of Miss Silence
Withers, her mother's half--sister, keeping house with her brother
Malachi, a bachelor, already called Old Malachi, though hardly entitled
by his years to such a venerable prefix. Both these persons had
inherited the predominant traits of their sad-eyed mother. Malachi,
the chief heir of the family property, was rich, but felt very poor. He
owned this fine old estate of some hundreds of acres. He had moneys
in the bank, shares in various companies, wood-lots in the town; and a
large tract of Western land, the subject of a lawsuit which seemed as if
it would never be settled, and kept him always uneasy.

Some said he hoarded gold somewhere about the old house, but nobody knew
this fo