He was an only son—the idol of parents too indulgent for his good. When will parents learn to temper kindness with prudence? Daily is the lesson of their complicated duties taught them by the fate of those who fall victims to their careless teachings. Here, one is ruined by over indulgence; there, another is embittered and hardened by undue rigor; here, genius is crushed by ridicule; there, stupidity is rendered vain by undeserved praise. How rarely is the onerous office of a parent properly fulfilled! Weldon’s early training left him quite unfitted to resist temptation in any form. Impulse, not principle, was the law of his actions. At college he formed an intimacy with some dissipated young men. As the wine circulated they boasted of their licentiousness, until Paul Weldon’s better feelings were crushed, and he thought with them, that the ruin of the peace of the innocent and happy was a feat to be proud of. Under such guidance he followed them to their haunts of dissipation: he was initiated into their orgies, and soon became the boon companion of the vilest of the vile—of a set of villains who wore the semblance of gentlemen, and yet, at heart, were as deeply dyed with crime as the wretch who expiates his guilt on the gallows. Strange that society banishes from its temples those who break the laws of men, yet welcomes with open arms the offender against the laws of God and the dictates of natural justice. We will not follow Weldon through his downward path. At first conscience restrained him, but the ridicule of his associates soon drowned her warning voice, and he hurried on in his reckless course until he became a leader among his former teachers in vice. Thus passed his college life, and when he returned to his home it was with feelings dulled and seared by crime. Paul Weldon’s father was a country gentleman of the old school. His mother, the proud daughter of a poor earl, had been a belle, and had married, partly for love, partly for money. Preferring to be “first in a province rather than second in a city,” when her charms waned she retired to her husband’s fine old country-house, where she assumed the airs of a queen regnant over the neighboring provincials. In the outskirts of the village, however, was one who neither courted nor fawned upon her. This was Mrs. White, the widow of a gallant officer who fell bravely fighting for his country, bequeathing to his young wife’s guardianship his only child—a daughter, then an infant. Mrs. White possessed a small annuity, and with this she purchased the cottage near Weldon Manor. Here she lived quietly and happily, devoting her whole time to the education of her daughter, who, like a rose in the desert, seemed “born to blush unseen.”