"I had two sons," she went on to say, after a short time--"only two. They were fine young men, gifted and handsome. In fact, all my children were allowed to be very models of beauty. One entered the army, the other the navy. The eldest went with his regiment to the Cape, where he married a woman of low family--an infamous creature of no blood; though she was decently conducted for a low-born thing as she was. She was well-spoken of by those who knew her; but what _could_ she be with a butcher for a grandfather! However, my poor infatuated son loved her to the last. She was very pretty, I have heard--young, and timid; but being of such fearfully low origin, of course she could not be recognized by my husband or myself! We forbade my son all intercourse with us, unless he would separate himself from her; but the poor boy was perfectly mad, and he preferred this low-born wife to his father and mother. They had a little baby, who was sent over to me when the wife died--for, thank God! she did die in a few years' time. My son was restored to our love, and he received our forgiveness; but we never saw him again. He took a fever of the country, and was a corpse in a few hours. My second boy was in the navy--a fine, high-spirited fellow, who seemed to set all the accidents of life at defiance. I could not believe in any harm coming to _him_. He was so strong, so healthy, so beautiful, so bright: he might have been immortal, for all the elements of decay that showed themselves in him. Yet this glorious young hero was drowned--wrecked off a coral-reef, and flung like a weed on the waters. He lost his own life in trying to save that of a common sailor--a piece of pure gold bartered for the foulest clay! Two years after this, my husband died of typhus fever, and I had a nervous attack, from which I have never recovered. And now, what do you say to this history of mine? For fifteen years, I have never been free from sorrow. No sooner did one grow so familiar to me, that I ceased to tremble at its hideousness, than another, still more terrible, came to overwhelm me in fresh misery. For fifteen years, my heart has never known an hour's peace; and to the end of my life, I shall be a desolate, miserable, broken-hearted woman. Can you understand, now, the valuelessness of my riches, and how desolate my splendid house must seem to me? They have been given me for no useful purpose here or hereafter; they encumber me, and do no good to others. Who is to have them when I die? Hospitals and schools? I hate the medical profession, and I am against the education of the poor. I think it the great evil of the day, and I would not leave a penny of mine to such a radical wrong. What is to become of my wealth--?" "Your grandson," I interrupted, hastily: "the child of the officer."