After a grateful union of a few years, they had both lost their wives.

A single child, in the case of each, had preserved and hallowed to them the memories of their mothers.

To the younger brother Ralph, a son had been born, soothing the sorrows of the exile, and somewhat compensating his loss.

To William Colleton, the elder brother, his wife had left a single and very lovely daughter, the sweet and beautiful Edith, a girl but a few months younger than her cousin Ralph.

It was the redeeming feature, in the case of the surviving parents, that they each gave to their motherless children, the whole of that affection--warm in both cases--which had been enjoyed by the departed mothers.
Separated from each other, for years, by several hundred miles of uncultivated and untravelled forest, the brothers did not often meet; and the bonds of brotherhood waxed feebler and feebler, with the swift progress of successive years.