Some of these traits excited my father's solicitude for the future happiness of his daughter; but they were overbalanced by so many noble qualities and shining virtues, that no other eye detected their blemishes.

Your mother believed him faultless; she had given him her affections, with all the enthusiasm of her guileless heart; and he regarded her with a devotion, that almost bordered on idolatry." Madame de la Tour paused, and Lucie, raising her head from the attitude of profound attention with which she listened, asked, in an accent which seemed to deprecate an affirmative answer, "You are not weary, I hope, dearest aunt ?" "Not weary, Lucie," she replied; "but you must sometimes allow me a moment's respite, to collect and arrange my thoughts.

More than twenty years have passed since these events, yet, child as I then was, they made too deep an impression on my mind to be effaced by time; and I cannot, even now, reflect on them without emotion.
"I have dwelt thus minutely on your father's character," she continued, "that you may be prepared for"-- "For what ?" interrupted Lucie; "surely all these happy prospects were not soon darkened by clouds!" "We will not anticipate," said Mad.

de la Tour, in a voice slightly tremulous.

She again resumed, "De Courcy was the younger son of an ancient and honorable family.