The wife he had chosen was not worthy of him. She had married him from pique, and when he felt the world's frowns most keenly, she told him so. But she did not often remind him of the wrong she had "done herself." Cold, sullen, impatient of misfortune, and angry with him whose fault had been in loving her too well, she nursed her wrath in silence. But it was stamped upon her haughty brow, her dilated nostril, her curled lip. She lived upon it! She looked upon the whole world as her enemy; but the world did not think her worth quarrelling with--some called her "poor Mrs Lyle." "Poor Mrs Lyle! Who made me so?" she would say; and then, because her Christian husband met her scorn without retort, she would utter some bitter word, indicative of contempt, and relapse again into gloom. But the iron entered into _his_ soul. He died, leaving her with a son, who had little knowledge of his father, save that his mother spoke of him as the author of all her misfortunes. The child did not understand this. All he could recollect of his father was the good man's deathbed--the thin hands held out to wife and child-- and pale lips parting, and blessing them that had mocked him; for the boy had been taught to laugh his father to scorn. An elder brother allowed Mrs Lyle a small annuity. She accepted it, grumbling, because it was scanty; but the baronetcy was not rich, and the brother did more for the sister than she deserved, for she had always been ungracious. Her son, although he resembled her, was not happy in her society; he was glad when he went to school, and he found companions there who drew out his better qualities; at sixteen his uncle desired that he should be sent as a private pupil to a clergyman; at seventeen he lost his mother; and at twenty, his uncle being also dead, he found himself without a profession, and with two thousand pounds, a remnant of his mother's fortune, for patrimony. One being in the world loved this proud and gloomy boy--she was the daughter of the Cornish clergyman whose pupil he had been. She was not beautiful, but there was a graceful gaiety about her which relieved him from himself. The principles of this poor motherless creature were not what her father imagined them to be; indeed, he was too learned to have much knowledge of human nature; but when he discovered the result of Lyle's intimacy with his daughter, the old man's grief and terror were overwhelming. The sight of those white hairs bent to the dust with shame and sorrow, was more than Lyle could bear--he, who had never known the strength of a parent's love, was overcome. He married his victim--married her on her deathbed: for, five hours afterwards he was a widower, and the father of a son--the convict, Jasper Lyle.