e worth a hundred thousand dollars.
To each of the children he left fifty thousand dollars. This did not
please the aristocratic notions of the mother. It would have been more
in consonance with her views, if but one-third of the whole property
had been left to her, and the balance to their eldest son, with the
reservation of small annuities for the other children. In her own mind
she determined to will all she had to Charles, with the distinct
proviso that he took possession of it only on the condition of dropping
his father's name, and assuming that of her family, which was Beauchamp.

Long before he was twenty-one years of age, she commenced her insidious
attacks upon his native manliness of character, which showed itself in
a disposition to value every thing with which he came in contact,
according to intrinsic worth. He never bought of the family of any one
with whom he was brown into association, but of qualities of head and
heart. At school he had learned how to estimate individual worth;
books, truly American books, conceived by American minds, strengthened
the right impression so made. When, therefore, Mrs. Linden attempted to
show him that family was the primary thing to be considered in his
associations with people, her efforts were altogether fruitless.

All persons of Mrs. Linden's way of thinking make it a point to take
the marriage of their children pretty much into their own hands,
believing that their external views on the subject are far better than
the internal attraction toward an object that can be truly loved, which
their children imagine they feel--or, as they say, "imagine." The
mother of Charles understood well her duty in this matter. Long before
her son had passed his fourteenth year, she had made a selection for
him in a little Miss, younger than he was by two years, named
Antoinette Billings. Antoinette's mother was a woman after Mrs.
Linden's own heart. She understood the first distant hint made on the
subject, and readily came to a fair and open understanding with Mrs.
Linden. Then it was managed so that the children were much together,
and they were taught to look upon each other as engaged for marriage at
some future day.

Charles was a fine, noble-hearted boy; but Antoinette was a spoiled,
pert, selfish creature, and had but little control over her tempers,
that were by no means amiable. It was not long before the future
husband, so called, wisely determined that Miss Antoinette shoul