He shrunk from the rural gaieties and companionship he had before courted and enlivened, and, for the first time in his life, the mourner felt the holiness of solitude.
As his nephew and his motherless daughters grew up, they gave an object to his seclusion and a relief to his reflections.

He found a pure and unfailing delight in watching the growth of their young minds, and guiding their differing dispositions; and, as time at length enabled the to return his affection, and appreciate his cares, he became once more sensible that he had a HOME.
The elder of his daughters, Madeline, at the time our story opens, had attained the age of eighteen.

She was the beauty and the boast of the whole country.

Above the ordinary height, her figure was richly and exquisitely formed.

So translucently pure and soft was her complexion, that it might have seemed the token of delicate health, but for the dewy and exceeding redness of her lips, and the freshness of teeth whiter than pearls.