and, concealing her feelings, made a very
good wife. For marriage was not their forte.
Not an Everett was ever known to stoop
down to kiss a husband's forehead as he sat
before the fire reading; not an Everett was
ever known to talk nonsense in the nursery
— neither to ride a-cock-horse, nor to bewail
the fate of Humpty Dumpty, neither to
rock-a-by-baby on a tree top, nor to perform a
monody in A minor, all about "Kiddlie, Coosie,
Coosie, Coo"— a song I once heard from a
dear young mother, and which I thought the
most beautiful of songs. The Everetts were
not given to any such follies; excepting
Jacob, who loved children as they would be
loved, and who used to play at bo-peep with
the cottagers' babies.

Some years ago—just at the time when
pretty Anna Fay, the Sunday-school mistress,
so suddenly left Green Grove —a strange
alteration took place in Jacob Everett. His
cheerfulness, which had been his strongest
characteristic, was exchanged for the most
painful depression. He talked frequently of
his sins, and gave more liberally than ever to
missions and charities. His friends could
not understand this depression; which, at
last, became habitual. He gave them no clue
to it; but, with scarcely a day's warning, he
left home to travel in the south of Europe.
He had been looking ill and more than ever
harassed of late; and every one said, it was the
best thing he could do, great as would be
everybody's loss. His sister Tabitha alone objected,
on the score of the Jesuits. However, Jacob
went; discharging all his servants and
shutting ip the beautiful old Hall. To the infinite
surprise of everybody he openly and
unblushingly took from the neighbouring village
a certain Betty Thorne, a fine, handsome,
Roman looking woman, a farmer's sister, aged
about forty. And Betty Thorne travelled
with him in his own carriage.

Five years passed away, and Jacob's letters
became rarer and more rare. He wrote ever
in the same depressed condition of mind;
spoke often of "Good Betty Thorne, who had
been such a blessed comfort to him," and
hinted vaguely at some unforgiven sin. Then
for two years more no letters came, even
in answer to business inquiries; and all
trace of the traveller was lost. His very
bankers did not know his address, and
"Sardinia" left wide margins. Mrs. Hibbert one
day grew quite warm when she spoke of his
neglect with Paul and Jessie, her two
children; almost agreeing that Paul, poor child—
who, by the way, was three-and-twenty,
destined for the church but preferring the
army, and so making a compromise by studying
for the bar —that Paul should go to Italy
in search of his Uncle Jacob. But the
Jesuits and the Signoras frightened her. And
while their deliberations went on, a letter
came to Mrs. Hibbert sealed with black and
written with copper-coloured ink; which
letter was from Betty Thorne, telling her
"that her honoured master had gone to rest
the seventh of this September last past, and
the letter would tell her gracious madam all
about it."

The letter enclosed was from Jacob Everett
himself, revealing the mystery of his life.

Oh Anna Fay! with your nut-brown hair
and quaker eyes, and dove-like ways, who
would have believed that you, so good and
so demure, with Jacob the best man of
Green Grove, would have given such a hostage
as that round, red, laughing, loving little being
— that flower plucked in a forbidden forest;
that unauthorised, unsanctioned, unlawful
little liege —Estella, "star of your mourning!"
God forgive you both. You sinned, and you
suffered; you fell and you repented;
perhaps your burning tears and your prayers
of penitence and grief may have effaced the
dark record in the Great Book above. You
are both cold in your tombs now —Heaven's
mercy rest on you, and Heaven's angels
restore you! There are enough in this hard
world to cast stones at you both; for us, we
will but water the flowers on your graves,
and pluck up the weeds, and place a headstone
where ye lie, with "There is joy among the
angels of God over the sinner that repenteth,"
engraven thereupon.

In this letter to his sister, Jacob made a
full confession; telling her that, shocked and
terrified at his crime, he had sent away
Anna Fay, who refused to marry him as he
wished, and how she had lived in Italy ever
since —he, Jacob, feeling that entire separation,
though they loved each other well, was
the only reparation they could make to
Heaven: and how, five years ago, she had
died, leaving their child without a friend or
protector in the world. How he had then
gone over with Betty Thorne, to whom he had
confided his secret, to guard and educate his
girl; which he had done carefully. He then
ended by appointing Tabitha guardian and
sole trustee of his daughter, now seventeen
years of age; for, to his child he left all his
property, excepting a generous donation to
Betty Thorne. He further said that a bequest
made so solenmly as this of his orphan child
on his deathbed, would, he was sure, be
regarded as sacred; and that Estella would be
nurtured carefully for his sake. All the
usual subscriptions, and a certain yearly
allowance of which we shall have to speak
presently, were to be continued until Estella
would be of age, when she would consult her
father's memory and her own feelings only.

It took but little time for Mrs. Hibbert to
reflect on her course of action. Paul and Jessie,
impulsive as all young people are, pleaded
instant adoption of the child, and of Betty Tliorne,
too; but Tabitha Hibbert, wounded in her
family pride, in her religious conscience, and
in her worldly ambition, turned coldly to her
children saying, "The girl who has robbed
you and your cousins of your rightful inheritance,
who is a stain on an unspotted name,