This house was built and occupied many years by Mr St. Hubert, an immigrant from France, and at his death it was left to his only child, Mrs Vane, with a condition that neither it nor a foot of the land about it should be sold during her life-time. A great many tales might be told of what happened in that house from first to last--most of them sorrowful tales enough--but it is only the story of poor Mrs Vane and her children that is to be told here. Almost every one spoke of this lady as "poor Mrs Vane." Her friends had all said, "Poor Theresa," when it was first known that she was to be married to Mr Vane; for he was a poor man, and a widower with three children, who, they all said, wished to marry her because she was the daughter of a man who was supposed to be rich. Her father would have given half of what he possessed, rather than that she should have married Mr Vane; but he had never crossed a wish of hers during all the eighteen years of her life, and it was too late to begin then. So, though he did not like him, he gave his consent to the marriage, on condition that he should leave the army, and accept a situation in a public office, which he, being a man of wealth and influence, was able to obtain for him. It did not cost Mr Vane much self-denial to do this--though he used afterwards to declare that it did--for he was a man who first of all considered what was for his own ease and pleasure. Nor did it trouble him much to send his children from him. His eldest daughter was adopted by his first wife's mother, who resided in the town of M.; and his other children--a boy and girl--were sent home to be cared for and educated by their father's friends in England; and he took up his residence in the luxurious home of his father-in-law with very good will. It did not prove a happy marriage. It might have done so, perhaps, if after a few years Mrs Vane's health had not failed. If she could have continued the gay life to which she had been introduced, and could have shone a belle among her husband's friends, as she had done in her own smaller circle while a girl, she might have had a sort of happiness, while it lasted, and so might he. But after awhile her health failed, and at the time of her father's death, which happened when her eldest child was thirteen years of age, she was a confirmed invalid.