tone which appeared so natural to her, when she addressed her youngest daughter.

"Grace is hurt and vexed, because I have offended William Mansel, mamma," said Maria, in a deprecating tone.

"William Mansel," repeated her mother, in a tone of angry contempt, "but you are father's own child, Grace," she continued, "and I find it is impossible that I can instil into you any proper pride; your ideas are like his, low and grovelling. Heaven help me, if I had no one but you to depend upon, I should be compelled, I am well aware, to moulder out the remainder of my days, as I have the last twenty years of my life, in obscurity. Ah! I have paid dearly for the romance and folly of my young days, but I am thankful, I have still one hope left, one dutiful child who will avoid the rock on which her mother's peace was wrecked, an unhappy, ill-assorted marriage."

"But surely, dear mother, you would not call a marriage with William Mansel, an ill-assorted marriage!" said Grace, timidly, "he has had an education far superior to-to

"To your father, I suppose you mean, miss; really you are a very dutiful young lady."

"I did not mean my father!" faltered Grace.

"Who did you mean, then?—not your sister! You could not mean her, after the money that has been spent upon her; but it is not worth my while to ask questions of such a dolt, who does not know her own meaning. So go about your business, and make your father's porridge, for he has been waiting for it this

hour, because nobody can make it like his darling ; there's a pair of you, indeed, you and your father."

The contempt with which the latter words were pronounced, might have induced a spirit of reply in any other but Grace's well-schooled bosoin-but she had been too long accustomed to such taunts-and by patient and just reflection, too well convinced of their worthlessness and insignificance, to regard them in any other light, than as mere empty wind. With a smile, therefore, which said, as plain as looks could say, that she was perfectly content to bear the imputation of being her father's own child, she hastened to the kitchen, leaving her mother to her private conference with her daughter, as as Mrs. Woodford was used with emphasis to style the beautiful Maria, who certainly, if personal charms would have formed any plea to excuse a mother's partiality, possessed a most abundant share.

Maria Woodford, was at this period in her nineteenth year, but the clear transparency of her complexion, the delicacy of her exquisitely-moulded form, and the profusion of light, auburn ringlets, which shaded her fair face, and hung over her ivory shoulder, in thick glossy curls, gave her the appearance of almost infantine beauty. Taught by incessant lessons, from her earliest years, by her weak and partial mother, to consider the preservation of the charms which nature had so liberally bestowed, as the most important object of her life, no frown had ever wrinkled the fair, open forehead; nor aught but smiles, which parted her rosy lips to display the pearly treasures within, had been allowed to disturb for a moment the perfect regularity of her

faultless features. The sole subject of her mother's thoughts by day, the sole object of her dreams by night, Maria's beauty had hitherto been the talisman, which had secured the indulgence of her every wish, and which the fond foolish mother firmly believed, was to purchase for her hereafter, all that she conceived. was necessary to secure her perfect happiness-rank and riches.

CHAPTER II.

"Whose imp art thou, with dimpled cheek,
And curly pate, and merry eye?

What boots it who, with sweet caresses,

First called thee, his-or squire, or hind?"

JOANNA BAILLIE.

ROGER WOODFORD was the son of a small farmer in Cardiganshire, and in his youth was remarkable for a handsome, active person, great good-humour, and a most insuperable love of mischief; for which of these qualities he was, at the age of fourteen, taken into the service of his father's landlord, a gentleman whose pedigree was much longer than his rent-roll, it would, perhaps, now be impossible to say, but such is the fact, that from idling about the hedges, looking for bird's nests, scraping on an old broken fiddle, and cutting grotesque figures in wood with his knife-which