colors, that Mr. Howard gradually but surely found his school abandoned, and himself so misrepresented, that a spirit less self-possessed and secure in its own integrity must have sunk beneath it. But he had some true friends, and none more active and earnest than Mr. Hamilton. A very brief residence at Oakwood Rectory removed even the recollection of the injustice he had experienced; and he himself, as pastor and friend, proved a treasure to high and low. Ten other youths, sons of the neighboring gentry, became his pupils, their fathers gladly following in Mr. Hamilton's lead.

About a mile and a half across the park was Moorlands, the residence of Lady Helen Grahame, whose name had been so often mentioned by the young Hamiltons. Her husband Montrose Grahame, had been Arthur Hamilton's earliest friend, at home, at college, and in manhood. Lady Helen the youngest daughter of a marquis, had been intimate with Emmeline and Eleanor Manvers from childhood, and had always admired and wished to resemble the former, but always failed, she believed, from being constituted so differently; others might have thought from her utter want of energy and mental strength. The marriage at first appeared likely to be a happy one, but it was too soon proved the contrary. Grahame was a man of strict, perhaps severe principles; his wife, though she never did any thing morally wrong, scarcely knew the meaning of the word. Provoked with himself for his want of discrimination, in imagining Lady Helen so different to the being she really was; more than once discovering she did not speak the exact truth, or act with the steady uprightness he demanded, his manner became almost austere; and, in consequence, becoming more and more afraid of him, Lady Helen sunk lower and lower in his esteem.

Two girls and a boy were the fruits of this union. Lady Helen had made a great many excellent resolutions with regard to their rearing and education, which she eagerly confided to Mrs. Hamilton, but when the time of trial came, weakness and false indulgence so predominated, that Grahame, to counteract these evil influences, adopted a contrary extreme, and, by a system of constant reserve and severity, became an object of as much terror to his children as he was to his wife. But he did not pursue this conduct without pain, and never did he visit Oakwood without bitter regret that his home was not the same.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton had often tried to alter the aspect of affairs at Moorlands; the former, by entreating Grahame