The society which fascinated me most and called for all my idle hours was that of my four dear little children, whose arms, having been for ever torn from the embrace of an affectionate mother, were ready to cling to my neck whenever I quitted the toils of my painting-room. There was a charm in that little circle of society which all the fascinations of the fashionable world could never afford me, and I preferred the simple happiness that was thus sweetly spread around me to the amusements and arts of matured and fashionable life. The days and nights and weeks and months of my life were passing on whilst my house rang with the constant notes of my little girls and my dear little "Tambour Major," producing a glow of happiness in my life, as its hours were thus carolled away, which I never before had attained to. My happiness was here too complete to last long, and, as the sequel will show, like most precious gifts, was too confidently counted on to continue. A sudden change came over this pleasing dream of life; the cheering notes of my little companions were suddenly changed into groans, and my occupations at my easel were at an end. The chirping and chattering in the giddy maze of their little dances were finished, and, having taken to their beds, my occupation was changed to their bedsides, where they were all together writhing in the agonies of disease, and that of so serious a nature as to require all my attention by night and by day, and at length anxieties of the most painful kind, and alarm--of grief, and a broken heart! To those of my readers who have ever set their whole heart upon and identified their existence with that of a darling little boy, and wept for him, it is unnecessary--and to those who have never been blessed with such a gift it would be useless--for me to name the pangs that broke my heart for the fate of my little "Tambour Major," who, in that unlucky hour, thoughtlessly relinquishing all his little toys, laid down with his three little sisters, to run the chances with them, and then to be singled out as he was by the hand of death.