"The darling child," said Mabel, "what taste she has!"

"And the sweetness of everything!" exclaimed Pamela.

While my father stroked my curls, and murmured out low words expressive of pleasure.

"Aladdin with his wonderful lamp could not have desired anything more lovely," asked Mabel of our father.

"No," he answered. "If we wish it, we can all rub the lamp of imagination and invention; happy those who, divining, need no genii to execute their wishes. We will search further into Eastern habits, as, though Imagination is thought to be the fool of the house, she is not to be despised, but the rather courted with pretty notions, and encouraged by the soft arts of love. See, the child has conveyed us to Ceylon. Ripe fruit hangs side by side with blooms, her oaken trellis is garlanded with flowers, while we pluck our grapes from amid them."

"She must be crowned this evening with the chaplet of favour, father," said Mabel.

แ "So be it, let us reward merit on the instant."

24

CHAPTER III.

"I come from far,

I'll rest myself, O world! awhile on thee;
And half in earnest, half in jest, I'll cut

My name upon thee, pass the Arch of Death,
Then on a stair of stars, go up to God."

A. SMITH.

THE antecedents of our family might be traced through a series of records or journals, which, begun by the first owner of Lovelleigh, had been carried on with something of a religious exactitude. We were familiar with the whole of them, beginning with that of Sir Linton Lovell, knight, to our paternal grandmother's, which was the most voluminous of them all. Nothing was done in our day by our father regarding his estates, without reference to these

records. He seemed to have more reverence for the opinions of his forefathers, than for the modern advice of lawyers and agents. It was part of our education to examine and copy out the memoranda that he required, and in this manner, we had become so intimately mixed up with the chronicles of the family, that they were almost as familiar to us as if we had lived, loved, and suffered with them.

The habits and thoughts of those from whom we were descended appeared so strangely like our own, we scarcely remembered the lapse of time, but the more readily inherited the family ways, as well as name and blood. It did not appear that we were or ever had been conspicuous for eminent virtues or startling vices. There was no legend of chivalry, no romance of loyalty, no tradition of life laid down at the shrine of religion, country, or king. At the same time, there was not the trace of a stain on the name of any Lovell con

nected with us. We appeared to have been always respected, and if not much beloved, it would seem we deserved little, because we gave none out of our own family. Without being self-sufficient or cynical, the sin of our race appeared to be seclusion from the rest of the world, -not arising from churlishness or austerity, but the rather from an indolent shyness. From the opening remark of our ancestor, Sir Linton, this sin can be traced through every record up to our grandmother.

"It hath pleased God our Father to give peace in this realm of England, with a rightful king to rule the land. I design then to use my moneys for the good purpose of buying an estate, that my son and lawful heirs may think well of me. It hath long pleased mine eye, this land of Lovel-Leigh; it is furnished with fair pasturage, and a goodly house, and much richness of fair wood, with great trees; and is the more desirable through at