Barbara lived a solitary life so far as intercourse with her peers went. She neither sought nor greatly avoided the society which would have crowded around her. Having spent so much of her life abroad, she had few acquaintances in England, and made none after her return from America. Twice she received letters from that country, directed in a stiff, cramped hand, which always left her in a state of depression for days after she read them. But a gracious calmness would gently sweep these sad memories away, and she went on steadily with her life, twining hope into prayer, and waiting God's time for her deliverance. Barbara loved the stately edifice, which had been repaired and beautified by her grandmother. Indeed, hers was a nature to love every thing good and beautiful. Her rooms were full of pictures, statues, and rare objects collected in her travels. The gardens and broad pleasure-grounds around her mansion glowed with flowers, which clustered thickest and brightest beneath the windows of her private apartments. Sorrow had neither rendered her austere nor indifferent. She loved the grand old forest-trees which waved in groups upon the lawn, and every tiny blossom that gemmed the turf at their roots. The pretty birds that flashed from thicket to tree-bough found a welcome in her heart, heavy as it was at times. She strove, with Christian fortitude, to replace the husband and son lost to her, by the gentle beauties of nature; and, desolated as she was, life had its sunny side even for her. One morning this noble woman--the more noble that she was so womanly--sat alone in a little breakfast-room which overlooked a vista of the park, and nearer yet a flower-garden radiant with June roses and such sister flowers as link spring to summer. That morning she was weary and heavy-hearted; her mind wandered far away in spite of herself, and a strange yearning to look upon the two faces dearest to her in life seized upon her. She sat gazing out upon the flowers, with unconscious tears rolling down her cheeks, when a servant knocked at the door, and, receiving no answer, came in. "My lady, a note from a gentleman who waits below: two others, with a lovely young lady, are with him; but he is the only one who asks to see you." Barbara reached forth her hand wearily, and took the note thus presented from the salver. She did not look at the address, but tore the seal apart, and read one word--William Phipps--all the rest ran together, and she could distinguish nothing. With her lips apart, and the paper shaking in her hands, she sat a full minute gazing upon the name without seeing it. The voice of the servant aroused her. "My lady, is there an answer?" "Wait." The voice in which this one word was uttered scarcely rose above a whisper. Barbara swept one hand across her forehead again and again, clearing her confused vision. At last she read--