Your mother was no more; she was gone;--she who was my last staff in life! I remained at Grinselhof alone with you, my child, and with my promise,--a promise made to God and to the dead! What should I do to fulfil it?
Quit my hereditary estate?
wander away seeking my fortune in foreign lands, and work for our mutual support?
That would not do, for it would have devoted you at once to the chances of a wretched uncertainty.

I could not think of such a course with any degree of satisfaction; nor was it till after long and anxious reflection that a ray of hope seemed to promise us both a happy future.
"I resolved to disguise our poverty more carefully than ever, and to devote my time to the most elaborate cultivation of your mind.

God made you beautiful in face and person, Lenora; but your father was anxious to initiate you into the mysteries of science and art, and, while he endowed you with a knowledge of the world, to make you virtuous, pious, and modest.

I desired to make you an accomplished woman, and I hoped that the nobility of your blood, the charms of your beauty, the treasures of your heart and intellect, would compensate in society for the portion that was denied you.

Thus was it, my child, that I thought in time, you would make a suitable alliance which would restore you to the position you hold by birth.