In the beginning of the year 1658, Major Bridgenorth was childless; ere it ended, he had a daughter, indeed, but her birth was purchased by the death of an affectionate wife, whose constitution had been exhausted by maternal grief, and by the anxious and harrowing reflection, that from her the children they had lost derived that delicacy of health, which proved unable to undergo the tear and wear of existence. The same voice which told Bridgenorth that he was the father of a living child (it was the friendly voice of Lady Peveril), communicated to him the melancholy intelligence that he was no longer a husband. The feelings of Major Bridgenorth were strong and deep, rather than hasty and vehement; and his grief assumed the form of a sullen stupor, from which neither the friendly remonstrances of Sir Geoffrey, who did not fail to be with his neighbour at this distressing conjuncture, even though he knew he must meet the Presbyterian pastor, nor the ghastly exhortations of this latter person, were able to rouse the unfortunate widower. At length Lady Peveril, with the ready invention of a female sharped by the sight of distress and the feelings of sympathy, tried on the sufferer one of those experiments by which grief is often awakened from despondency into tears. She placed in Bridgenorth’s arms the infant whose birth had cost him so dear, and conjured him to remember that his Alice was not yet dead, since she survived in the helpless child she had left to his paternal care. “Take her away--take her away!” said the unhappy man, and they were the first words he had spoken; “let me not look on her--it is but another blossom that has bloomed to fade, and the tree that bore it will never flourish more!” He almost threw the child into Lady Peveril’s arms, placed his hands before his face, and wept aloud. Lady Peveril did not say “be comforted,” but she ventured to promise that the blossom should ripen to fruit. “Never, never!” said Bridgenorth; “take the unhappy child away, and let me only know when I shall wear black for her--Wear black!” he exclaimed, interrupting himself, “what other colour shall I wear during the remainder of my life?” “I will take the child for a season,” said Lady Peveril, “since the sight of her is so painful to you; and the little Alice shall share the nursery of our Julian, until it shall be pleasure and not pain for you to look on her.” “That hour will never come,” said the unhappy father; “her doom is written--she will follow the rest--God’s will be done.--Lady, I thank you--I trust her to your care; and I thank God that my eye shall not see her dying agonies.”