MRS. HADDAN'S HISTORY.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I

THE blow fell upon me very heavily and
very suddenly.

I was just turned one-and-twenty, the
son of an English gentleman of good family,
who had settled in New York before my
birth, and died when I was six years old,
leaving my mother, Margaret, and me
utterly penniless. Fortune's father had
left us a legacy of five thousand dollars
apiece, and left Fortune herself to be
brought up by my mother. She, Fortune
I mean, was heiress to two hundred thousand
dollars, while I had not a cent but
what her father had given me. If I ever
asked her to marry me it would be on the
score of my good birth, and the great, great
love I felt for her.

My mother is very small and timid, with
a quiet voice, that rarely rises above a
whisper; the prettiest woman I ever saw,
but with no spirit at all, and only eighteen
years older than me. We tyrannised over
her when we were children, and it was only
as I grew into manhood that I began to
feel a very sweet and pleasant feeling of
reverence mingled with the true love I had
always borne for her. Margaret and Fortune
loved her well, I know, though we
had all been accustomed to take our own
way without much reference to her.

"George," she said one day, "you
remember your father?"

"Remember him! I should think I did.
A fine, handsome, thorough English gentleman,
as different to the Yankees about him
as a grandee of Spain would be different
to a troop of Irish Paddies."

"His name was George, too," she said,
sighing.

"Do you want to tell me anything about
my father?" I asked, for I knew her well
enough to be sure that she was trembling
all over with something she ought to say.

"Yes," she said, bursting into tears; "I
promised Mr. Prescott to tell you when you
came of age."

This is what she had to tell me:

My father was the eldest son and heir of
George Haddan, of Haddan Lodge, Essex,
England. My grandfather had been married
twice, and had two sons, half-brothers. As
far as my mother knew, the estate,
consisting of property in London, was worth
about twelve thousand pounds a year.
His second wife, either intentionally or
otherwise, had kept up a perpetual
irritation between them, ending in a
gradually-growing distrust, which, however,
could not completely destroy the very
strong, almost romantic, affection that
existed, in spite of all adverse influence,
but which was open on both sides, to
extreme jealousy and impatience.

"George," said my mother, blushing
crimson, "I was not a grand lady; I was
not a lady at all. I was nothing but the
niece of Mrs. Haddan's maid."

I knelt down before her, and put my
arms round her neck. Whatever she had
been, she was my mother.

"Aunt Becket," she whispered, "hated
me. She only kept me near her to flout at
me and make me miserable. I was only a
very young creature; and Mr. George saw
me, and fell in love with me."

"And married you." I added, kissing her
dear face.

"Yes, yes," she said, hurriedly, and with
fresh tears; "but he never dare tell his
father he'd fallen in love with Becket's
niece. She threatened to kill me when
she only suspected it, and she almost