Maitland, the rich merchant, just returned from the East Indies, Grace had found an uncle, which proved her lineage to be such, that even the proud Lucy must acknowledge to be equal to her own. His sister, the mother of Grace, had eloped, when very young, with a handsome but profligate man, and being cast off by her parents, she was soon doomed to eat the bread of poverty, in consequence of her husband's excesses. Her brother, as soon as he learned her situation, offered to support her through life, declaring his intention never to marry, if she would leave her unprincipled husband. But she, in the strength of that passion which hopes all, believes all, and endures all, refused to leave the man she still loved, and whom she still trusted she might reclaim. Her brother, finding her wedded to her fate, left her with a purse of gold and his own miniature as a parting pledge of love, and departed for a foreign land. Forced to fly from the clamours of his creditors, Goldman removed his wife from place to place, till she was far out of the reach of former friends, when, plunging deeper and deeper in the gulf of inebriation, he left her to die, as we have described, of a broken heart. For himself, he died a drunkard's death by the wayside, and was buried by the same humane society that protected his orphan child. This circumstance had been concealed from Grace, nor did she learn it, till her subsequent visit to the Shaker village. Mr. Maitland, who had dwelt long in other lands, accumulating wealth, which his generous heart longed to share with the friends of his early youth, returned to mourn over the graves of his parents, and to seek in vain intelligence of his lost sister, till he saw in the crowd the lovely form of Grace, such as her ill-fated mother was in the days of her beauty and youth. Lucy could with sincerity offer her congratulations and welcome as a sister the niece of Mr. Maitland, though she had scorned the alliance of the humble Shaker girl. But she felt she was degraded in her eyes, and this was a punishment to her proud spirit, keener than the task-master's lash. Mr. Maitland's gratitude to Mr. Worthington was boundless as it was warm; but he longed to see the kind Samaritans, who had soothed his sister's dying hours and guarded her orphan child.