To forward this favourite object, he communicated to them both, that they were destined for each other; and by employing them in the same occupations, instructing them in the same studies, by the same masters, and in every way contriving that they should be continually together he hoped that early habits, and the first affections of childhood, might unite their hearts in indissoluble bonds. But how short-sighted, how little founded in a right knowledge of human nature, was this project! Habituated to the intimacy which subsists between near relations, was it probable that love, when the age of that passion arrived, would be content with objects thus familiar; and that the feelings of the heart would quietly acquiesce in an arrangement which had been previously formed upon the calculations of interest and family pride?—On the contrary, the system pursued in their education, accustomed them to give way to their violent tempers, without restraint, in their intercourse with each other; and the frequent recurrence of petty quarrels, soon produced sentiments, which bordered on dislike; so that at the moment, when the Duke exulted most in the success of his project, he was painfully undeceived. Happily, a new event which occurred at this time in the family of the Duke of Altamonte, soon turned his thoughts from the failure of his present system of education, the superintendence of which he relinquished with as much readiness, as he had once shewn anxiety to undertake it.—The Duchess, after a long period of ill health, was pronounced by her physicians to be once more in a situation to realize her husband’s most sanguine hopes.—“If I have a boy,” he cried, “from the hour of his birth all I possess shall be his. Give me but a son, ye powers who rule over destiny, and I am content to yield up every other claim, privilege and possession.”—The wish was heard, and at the appointed time, the Duchess of Altamonte, after a few hours illness, was delivered of a son and heir. It was in vain for the Duke, that until this event he said to himself daily as he arose from his stately bed, that none other was his rival in wealth or power;—it was in vain that friends surrounded him, and flatterers attended upon his least commands:—until this unexpected, and almost unhoped for event, he could not be said to have enjoyed one hour of felicity, so unwisely did he blind himself to every other blessing which he possessed; and so ardently solicitous did he suffer his mind to become, for that one boon which alone had been refused to his prayers. But since the birth of his son, he looked around him, and he had nothing left to wish for upon earth; his heart became agitated with its own satisfaction; and the terror of losing the idol upon which every feeling and affection was fixed, rendered him more miserable than he was even before the fulfilment of his wishes.