rain was falling without, and I walked hastily homeward,
musing on the strange scene in which I had so lately mingled. Seated in my
little study, I drew my table near the fire, arranged my reading-lamp, and
commenced the perusal of the manuscript confided to my charge. It was
written in a delicate Italian hand upon uncouth and various scraps of
paper, and appeared to have been transcribed with little attempt at
arrangement, and at long intervals; but my curiosity added the links to
the leading events, and I gradually entered with deeper interest into the
mournful history.

"How happy was my childhood!" it began. "I can scarcely remember a grief
through all that sunny lapse of years. I dwelt in a beautiful abode,
uniting the verandas and vine-covered porticoes of southern climes with
the substantial in-door comforts of English luxury. The country around was
romantic, and I grew up in its sylvan solitudes almost as wild and happy
as the birds and fawns that were my companions.

"I was motherless. My father, on her death, had retired from public life,
and devoted himself to her child. Idolized by him, my wildest wishes were
unrestrained; the common forms of knowledge were eagerly accepted by me,
for I had an intuitive talent of acquiring any thing which contributed to
my pleasure; and I early discovered that, without learning to read and
write, the gilded books and enameled desks in my father's library would
remain to me only as so many splendid baubles; but a regular education, a
religious and intellectual course of study, I never pursued. I read as I
liked, and when I liked. I was delicate in appearance, and my father
feared to control my spirits, or to rob me of a moment's happiness. Fatal
affection! How did I repay such misjudging love!

"Time flowed brightly on, and I had already seen sixteen summers, when the
_little cloud_ appeared in the sky that so fearfully darkened my future
destiny. In one of our charitable visits to the neighboring cottages, we
formed an acquaintance with a gentleman who had become an inhabitant of
our village; a fall from his horse placed him under the care of our worthy
doctor, and he had hired a small room attached to Ashtree farm, until he
recovered from the lingering effects of his accident. Handsome, graceful,
and insinuating in his address, he captivated my ardent imagination at
once. Unaccustomed to the world, I looked upon him as the very 'mould of
form;' a new and blissful enchantm