Captain Montreville had, from Laura's infancy, been accustomed to witness instances of her fortitude, to see her firm under unmerited and merciless chastisement, and patient under intense bodily suffering--but her composure on this occasion, so far surpassed his expectations, that he was inclined to attribute it less to fortitude than to inconsideration. 'How light-hearted is youth,' thought he, as he quitted her. 'This poor child has never seen the harsh features of poverty, but when distance softened their deformity, and she now beholds his approach without alarm.' He was mistaken. Laura had often taken a near survey of poverty. She had entered the cabins of the very poor--seen infancy squalid, and youth spiritless--manhood exhausted by toil, and age pining without comfort. In fancy she had substituted herself in the place of these victims of want; felt by sympathy their varieties of wretchedness; and she justly considered poverty among the heaviest of human calamities. But she was sensible that her firmness might support her father's spirits, or her weakness serve to aggravate his distress; and she wisely pushed aside the more formidable mischief, which she could not surmount, to attend to the more immediate evil, which she felt it in her power to alleviate. The moment she was alone, Laura fell on her knees: 'Oh! Heavenly Providence,' she cried, 'save, if it be thy will, my dear father's age from poverty, though, like my great Master, I should not have where to lay my head.' She continued to pray long and fervently, for spirits to cheer her father under his misfortune; and for fortitude to endure her own peculiar sorrow, in her estimation so much more bitter. Having implored the blessing of Heaven on her exertions, she next began to practice them. She wandered out to court the exhilarating influence of the mountain air; and, studiously turning her attention to all that was gay, sought to rouse her spirits for the task she had assigned them. She was so successful, that she was that evening the life of the little friendly circle. She talked, sang, and recited--she exerted all the wit and vivacity of which she was mistress--she employed powers of humour which she herself had scarcely been conscious of possessing. Her gaiety soon became contagious. Scarcely a trace appeared of the anxious fears of Mrs Douglas, or the parental uneasiness of Captain Montreville, and fewer still of the death-stroke which disappointed confidence had carried to the peace of poor Laura. But, retired to the solitude of her chamber, her exhausted spirits found relief in tears. She felt, that long to continue her exertion would be impossible; and, in spite of reason, which told of the danger of solitude, anticipated, with pleasure, the moment when total seclusion should leave her free to undisguised wretchedness.