And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it said,--"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,--so was her mother before her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,--he came from a noble stock." "That youth has a sacred love of truth,--it is his best inheritance,--his father's word was equivalent to his bond." If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of God and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark passions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven. CHAPTER XXX. I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would pause,--believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine into the temple of Hymen. But there is a _life within life_, which is never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand that wears the _wedding-ring_. There is a talisman in its golden circle, more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East. I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,--grand winding stairs of heaven--on which my spirit has so often climbed, then stepping to the clouds, looked through their "golden vistas" into the mysteries of the upper world. O thou charming home of my youth what associations cluster round thee! Thy noble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes on the lips! * * * * * When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was startled--alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before assuming the responsibilities of a wife.