er of negus on a small table by his side, conversing with his
child, as he would have done with her mother; holding her out at arm's
length, to mark her opening features; and then again straining her to his
bosom in a paroxysm of tears.

"Just my Helen--my own dear Helen anew!" he would say; "oh, my child--my
child!--dear, dear art thou to thy poor heart-broken father! but I will
live for thee!--I will live with thee!--and when thou diest, child, thou
shalt sleep on this breast--thou shalt be buried, child, in thy father's
dust; and thy mother and we shall meet, and I will tell her of her babe; of
that babe which cost her so much, and we will rejoin in divine love for
ever and ever!"

Oh, how beautiful is paternal affection!--the love of an only surviving
parent for an only child--and she a female. It is beautiful as the smile of
Providence on benevolence--it is strong as the bond which binds the world
to a common centre--it is enduring as the affections which, being cherished
on earth, are matured above!

As Helen grew up, her eye kindled, her brow expanded, her cheeks freshened
into the most delicious bloom, and she walked on fairy footsteps of the
most delicate impression. Her feet, her hands, her arms, her bust, her
whole person, spoke her at once the lady of a thousand descents--ages had
modelled her into aristocratic symmetry. But with all this, there was a
rustic simplicity about her, an open, frank, unaffected manner, which
seemed to say, as plain as any manner could, "I am not ashamed of being my
father's daughter." When Helen Palmer had attained her sixteenth year, she
was quite a woman--not one of your thread-paper bulrushes, which shoot
upwards merely into unfleshed gentility; but a round, firm, well-spread,
and formed woman--a bonny lass, invested with all the delicacy and softness
of a complete lady. Her bodily accomplishments, however, were not her only
recommendation; her mind was unusually acute, and her memory was stored
with much and varied information. She knew, for example, that the age in
which she lived was one of cruelty and bloodshed; that the second Charles,
who, at that time, filled the throne, was a sensual tyrant; that Lag,
Clavers, Douglas, Johnstone, and others, were bloody persecutors; and that
even Sir Roger Kirkpatrick himself, the humane and amiable in many
respects, was "a friend of the castle"--of the court--and would not permit
any of the poor persecuted remnant to take refuge in t