Thus was Horace Maitland Danforth ushered into life. He had been born at the house of his maternal uncle, Sir Thomas Maitland, and as his mother had been wholly dependent on this gentleman, and his father had been a soldier of fortune, leaving to his son no heritage but his name, he continued there, as carefully reared and tenderly regarded as though he had been the heir to Maitland Park and to all its dependencies. Though Sir Thomas had, for many years after the birth of his nephew intended to marry, it was an intention never executed, and when Horace attained his twenty-first birthday, his majority was celebrated as that of his uncle's heir, and as such he was presented by Sir Thomas Maitland to his assembled tenantry. Soon after this event, the Baronet obtained for his nephew a right to the name and arms of Maitland--a measure to which, knowing little of his father's family, Horace readily consented. Sir Thomas Maitland died suddenly while yet in the prime of life, and was succeeded by Sir Horace, then twenty-four years of age. In the enjoyments of society, of travel, and of those thousand luxuries, mental and physical, which fortune secures, three years passed rapidly away with the young, handsome, and accomplished Baronet. One of the earliest convictions of Horace Maitland's life had been, that the refining presence of woman was necessary to the perfection of Maitland Park, and when Sir Thomas said to him, "Marry, Horace--do not be an old bachelor like your uncle"--though he answered nothing, he vowed in the inmost recesses of his heart that it should not be his fault if he did not obey the injunction. Yet to the world it seemed wholly his own fault that at twenty-seven he had not given to Maitland Park a mistress, and even he himself could not attribute his continued celibacy to the coldness or cruelty of woman; for, in truth, though he had "knelt at many a shrine," he had "laid his heart on none." If hardly pressed for his reason, he might have said with Ferdinand,-- "For several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she own'd, And put it to the foil."