The war threw Lindsay into a perilous predicament. His estates were large, and his principles exposed him to the sequestration which was rigidly enforced against the royalist party. To avoid this blow, or, at least, to mitigate its severity, he conveyed the estate of the Dove Cote to Mildred; assigning, as his reason for doing so, that, as it was purchased with moneys belonging to his wife, he consulted and executed her wish, in transferring the absolute ownership of it to his daughter. The rest of his property was converted into money, and invested in funds in Great Britain. As soon as this arrangement was made, about the second year of the war, the Dove Cote became the permanent residence of the family; Lindsay preferring to remain here rather than to retire to England, hoping to escape the keen notice of the dominant party, and to find, in this classic and philosophical privacy, an oblivion of the rude cares that beset the pillow of every man who mingled in the strife of the day. He was destined to a grievous disappointment. His wife, to whom he was romantically attached, was snatched from him by death, just at this interesting period. This blow, for a time, almost unseated his reason. The natural calm of such a mind as Lindsay's is not apt to show paroxysms in grief. Its sorrow was too still and deep for show. The flight of years, however, brought healing on their wings; and Mildred and Henry gradually relumed their father's countenance with flashes of cheerful thought, that daily grew broader and more abiding; till, at last, sense and duty completed their triumph, and once more gave Lindsay to his family, unburdened of his grief, or, if not unburdened, conversing with it only in the secret hours of self-communion.