avert calamity, or stem the tide
of evil fortune, often suggests, as its last consolation, the notion of
a predetermined destiny, to which we are bound to submit with patient
trustfulness; a temperament of great humility aids this conviction.
Both of these conditions were Nelly's; she had "supped sorrow" from her
cradle, while her estimate of herself was the very lowest possible. "I
suppose it is so," said she again; "all is for the best."

She already pictured to herself the new spring this change of fortune
would impart to her father's life: with what delight he would read the
letters from his children; how he would once more, through them, taste
of that world whose pleasures he was so fondly attached to. "I never
could have yielded him a gratification like this," said Nelly, as the
tears rose in her eyes. "I am but the image of our fallen fortunes, and
in me, 'poor lame Nelly,' he can but see reflected our ruined lot. All
is for the best it must be so!" sighed she, heavily; and just as the
words escaped, her father, with noiseless step, entered the chamber.

"To be sure it is, Nelly darling," said he, as he sat down near her,
"and glad I am that you 've come to reason at last. 'T is plain enough
this is n't the way the Daltons ought to be passing their life, in a
little hole of a place, without society or acquaintance of any kind. You
and I may bear it, not but it's mighty hard upon me sometimes, too, but
Kate there just look at her and say, is it a girl like that should be
wasting away her youth in a dreary village? Lady Hester tells me and
sure nobody should know better that there never was the time in the
world when real beauty had the same chance as now, and I 'd like to see
the girl that could stand beside her. Do you know, Nelly," here he drew
closer, so as to speak in a whisper, "do you know, that I do be fancying
the strangest things might happen to us yet, that Frank might be a great
general, and Kate married to God knows what sort of a grandee, with
money enough to redeem Mount Dalton, and lay my old bones in the
churchyard with my ancestors? I can't get it out of my head but it will
come about, somehow. What do you think yourself?"

"I'm but an indifferent castle-builder, papa," said she, laughing
softly. "I rarely attempt anything beyond a peasant hut or a shealing."

"And nobody could make the one or the other more neat and comfortable,
that I 'll say for you, Nelly. It would have a look of home about