Minnie inherited none of the rare beauty which had been her father’s greatest charm. She had the soft dove-like eyes, the pale clear complexion, and the peculiar delicacy, almost fragility of frame which she derived from her mother. These personal traits, combined with her timid, gentle manner, her perfect good temper, and quiet undemonstrative tenderness of nature, made her seem merely one of those commonplace children whom old ladies are apt to praise as good quiet little girls. Yet Minnie had a fund of practical good sense, together with a certain playfulness of fancy, and a quick perception of the beautiful as well as the good in life, which if properly trained and cultivated might have made her a very superior woman. But in her early home patience, good temper, and industry were the only qualities called into exercise, and neither her father nor her mother knew or cared for any thing beyond the useful attributes in her character. As she emerged from infancy, she gradually became the little domestic drudge, for the rapid waste of her mother’s fortune soon reduced them to the narrowest mode of life, and when her father came home from the club, where he could still keep up appearances, to the small, ill-furnished house where his extravagance had imprisoned his wife, it was Minnie who waited on his caprices and ran at his call like a servant. As he became diseased and still more reduced, matters grew worse, and poor Minnie’s home became the scene of discord and discomfort, as well as the abode of positive want. Mr. Clifton grew into a sick savage, Mrs. Clifton sunk into querulous discontent, and Minnie was little more than the recipient of the ill-humor of both. Yet Minnie loved her parents dearly, and not a murmur ever escaped her lips, however unreasonable might be the demands upon her childish patience or her limited time. But she was destined to a heavier thraldom than that which nature had imposed. One of those local epidemics which sometimes devastate a neighborhood broke out near them, and both her parents fell victims to it while she lay in a state between life and death. When she recovered her consciousness she learned that her father and mother had been buried a week before, and she was now a poor friendless orphan. The tidings, uncautiously communicated, caused a relapse which brought her a second time to the brink of the grave. But the principle of life is wonderfully strong in youth, and after many weeks of suffering Minnie was restored to health. During her convalescence she gradually learned all the circumstances of her bereavement from a kind and careful nurse, in whose neat and pleasant apartment she found herself domiciled. “But how came I here?” asked the bewildered child, as she looked out upon the green fields that surrounded her present abode. “Let me answer you, my little cousin,” said a strange but pleasant voice, as a tall young stripling entered the room.