before, full of years and of domestic honors—a zealous sportsman, a loyal subject, a kind landlord, a good friend—his lot had fallen in quiet times and pleasant places, and he lived happily, and died in the arms of his family, at peace with all men. His wife, a calm and placid dame, who had, in her young days, been the beauty of the shire, survived him, and spent her whole time, as she devoted her whole mind and spirit, in educating the two daughters, joint heiresses of the old manor-houses, who were left by their father’s death, two bright-eyed fair-haired prattlers, dependent for protection on the strong love but frail support of their widowed mother. Years passed away, and with their flight the two fair children were matured into two sweet and lovely women; yet the same fleeting suns which brought to them complete and perfect youth were fraught to others with decay, and all the carking cares, and querulous ailments of old age. The mother, who had watched with keen solicitude over their budding infancy, over the promise of their lovely childhood, lived indeed, but lived not to see or understand the full accomplishment of that bright promise. Even before the elder girl had reached the dawn of womanhood, palsy had shaken the enfeebled limbs, and its accustomed follower—mental debility—had, in no small degree, impaired the intellect of her surviving parent; but long before her sister had reached her own maturity, the limbs were helplessly immovable, the mind was wholly clouded and estranged. It was not now the wandering and uncertain darkness that flits across the veiled horizon of the mind alternately with vivid gleams, flashes of memory and intellect, brighter perhaps than ever visited the spirit until its partial aberrations had jarred its vital principle—it was that deep and utter torpor, blanker than sleep and duller, for no dreams seem to mingle with its day-long lethargy—that absolute paralysis of all the faculties of soul and body, which is so beautifully painted by the great Roman satirist, as the “omnii Membrorum damno major dementia, quæ nec Homina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici Cum quo præterita cænavit nocti, nec illos Quos genuit, quos eduxit”—