Hence it was, that though he desired his daughter’s intellect to be cultivated, he took care that her moral qualities, using that word in its widest sense, should not run to waste. In order to have her properly educated, he had determined that she should go to England; but unwilling to trust her to a public school, he had sent out with her his sister, an elderly widow lady, the relict of an officer in the army. It was a hard trial for him to separate from his only child, and one so winning as Kate; for not only the fond father, but every one who knew her, declared her to be the life of the house. To the sweetness of her mother’s disposition, she added the gay heart which had distinguished her surviving parent when young. Fearless by nature, the life which she necessarily led, in a then comparatively wild district of the province of New Jersey, had given to her a courage and self-reliance above her sex and years: for not only at an age when girls generally are still in the nursery, had she learned to ride, so as to often accompany her father, but frequently, with no attendant but one or two stag-hounds, she galloped for half a morning through the woods. It was, perhaps, to her having spent her early years in this manner, that she owed her present blooming health and elastic step. Beauty is oftener the result of fresh air and exercise than of cosmetics. Three years after her arrival in England, Mr. Aylesford died, leaving Kate one of the richest heiresses in the colonies. In part, her property consisted of houses and stores in the city of Philadelphia, and in part of vast tracts of land in the middle counties of West Jersey. The war between the colonies and mother country soon after broke out, and, for a while, it seemed as if the heiress was destined never to see her native land again. Her guardians were averse to her return to a country distracted by war, and her aunt, who, in spite of being an officer’s widow, was timorous to the last degree, seconded them. But Kate inherited the resolute spirit of her father, and had early resolved to return, as soon as she became mistress of herself. Her fixed determination at last influenced her guardians, so that, after she had left school and been presented at court, a favorable opportunity offering, they had consented to her wish. They were the more willing to concede the point, because, at that time, the royal arms seemed about to triumph; New York was in undisturbed possession of Sir Henry Clinton; and the portion of New Jersey, where her estates lay, was, according to the current reports in London, free from the presence of the enemy. We need not add that these guardians, as well as her aunt, were warm friends of the king. It was on this return voyage, after a successful run of thirty days, and when, as the captain calculated, forty-eight hours would bring them within sight of Neversink, that we have introduced Miss Aylesford to the reader.