Rose was a volatile, thoughtless girl, yet affectionate and kind-hearted withal, and dearly loved her elder sister, who had indeed filled the place of a mother to her. Rose had elastic, unvarying spirits, which were not unwelcome in that dull old place, and kept the inmates from stagnation. She and Harold were the father’s darlings, though all Mr. Lovell’s hope and pride centred in his son. Pre-eminently beautiful in person, active and graceful, Harold Lovell was born the same year as his deceased cousin, Jocelyn Priestly, and the youths had strongly resembled each other, not only in person but in disposition. The partial parents had not, perhaps, read those dispositions truthfully, or in both their children they might have traced evil propensities, which went far to counterbalance the good—revengeful passions, and a proneness to selfish indulgence, which not all their brilliant acquirements and feats of gallant prowess could conceal from a close observer of character. They were at the same school together, and at Lovell Castle for the vacation, when that sad catastrophe took place which plunged the family in irremediable affliction. Mr. Lovell, who had always been a nervous, ailing man, never recovered the shock, and latterly he had sunk into complete indolence, and left the care and management of his affairs entirely to Harold, who, however, ill-fulfilled his duties. The aversion which Mrs. Priestly entertained toward her nephew, and which she vainly strove to conceal, had once been the source of painful contention between Mr. Lovell and his sister, though now it had settled down into a silent grief never alluded to by either of them. All these particulars I had heard from Rose; and much I was amazed at Mrs. Priestly’s conduct, coupled with the avowal she had made to me respecting the disposal of her property in favor of her nephew; but I knew her to be a just and strong-minded woman, and felt sure there was some mystery connected with these family details, which Rose was bursting to disclose, the first convenient opportunity. But I gave her no encouragement to do so, for I thought that, had Mrs. Priestly wished me to know the secret motives by which she was actuated, her confidence would have been already bestowed; and it seemed a breach of trust, or dishonorable, to gain the knowledge by other means. The sweet benignity of Mildred Lovell, her untiring patience and unaffected cheerfulness, as well as the strong resemblance of feature, continually reminded me of Mr. Edwin, and I pondered often on the parting words which I had heard him address to Mrs. Priestly—“Tell dear Mildred how happy I am.”