Originally highly connected, Captain Arundel had incurred the displeasure of his family by forming in the heat of youthful passion, and under peculiar circumstances, a marriage with the daughter of an English resident at Marseilles by a foreign mother. Too proud to seek to conciliate his relations, Mr. Arundel became a voluntary exile, entered into the Austrian army, where he speedily rose to the rank of captain and served with much distinction, till failing health induced him to resign his commission and return to England for the sake of educating his children. His heart was set on one object--namely, to bestow upon his son the education of an English gentleman, and for this purpose he had availed himself of a very unusual talent for painting as a means by which he might increase his slender income sufficiently to meet the expenses of sending Lewis to Westminster and afterwards to a German university. The constant application thus rendered inevitable fostered the seeds of that most insidious of all ailments, a heart-disease, and while still forming plans for the welfare of his family, an unwonted agitation induced a paroxysm of his complaint, and ere Rose could realise the misfortune that threatened her she was fatherless. Although stunned at first by the unexpected shock, hers was not a mind to give way at such a moment, and to those who judge by the outward expression only Mrs. Arundel’s grief appeared much more intense than that of her daughter. But Rose’s sorrow was not a mere transitory feeling, which a few weeks more or less might serve to dissipate; it had become part of her very nature, a thing too sacred to be lightly brought to view, but enshrined in the sanctuary of her pure heart it remained a cherished yet solemn recollection, which would shed its hallowing influence over the future of her young life. And now, as she sat with her calm, earnest eyes upturned to the tranquil heaven above her, her thoughts wandered back to him she had so dearly loved, and she pondered the solemn questions which have ere now presented themselves to many a mourning spirit, and longed to penetrate the secrets of the grave and learn things which death alone can teach us. Then she recalled conversations she had held with him that was gone on these very subjects, and remembered how he had said that the things which God had not seen fit to reveal, could neither be needful nor expedient for us to know; that such speculations were In themselves dangerous, inasmuch as they tended to lead us to form theories which, having no warrant in Scripture, might be at variance with truth; and that it was better to wait patiently in humble faith--that a time would come when we should no longer see through a glass darkly, and the hidden things of God should be made known unto us. Then her thoughts, still pursuing the same train, led her to reflect how all her father’s aspirations, crushed and disappointed in the wreck of his own fortunes, had centred in his son,