She already pictured to herself the new spring this change of fortune would impart to her father's life: with what delight he would read the letters from his children; how he would once more, through them, taste of that world whose pleasures he was so fondly attached to. “I never could have yielded him a gratification like this,” said Nelly, as the tears rose in her eyes. “I am but the image of our fallen fortunes, and in me, 'poor lame Nelly,' he can but see reflected our ruined lot. All is for the best it must be so!” sighed she, heavily; and just as the words escaped, her father, with noiseless step, entered the chamber. “To be sure it is, Nelly darling,” said he, as he sat down near her, “and glad I am that you 've come to reason at last. 'T is plain enough this is n't the way the Daltons ought to be passing their life, in a little hole of a place, without society or acquaintance of any kind. You and I may bear it, not but it's mighty hard upon me sometimes, too, but Kate there just look at her and say, is it a girl like that should be wasting away her youth in a dreary village? Lady Hester tells me and sure nobody should know better that there never was the time in the world when real beauty had the same chance as now, and I 'd like to see the girl that could stand beside her. Do you know, Nelly,” here he drew closer, so as to speak in a whisper, “do you know, that I do be fancying the strangest things might happen to us yet, that Frank might be a great general, and Kate married to God knows what sort of a grandee, with money enough to redeem Mount Dalton, and lay my old bones in the churchyard with my ancestors? I can't get it out of my head but it will come about, somehow. What do you think yourself?” “I'm but an indifferent castle-builder, papa,” said she, laughing softly. “I rarely attempt anything beyond a peasant hut or a shealing.” “And nobody could make the one or the other more neat and comfortable, that I 'll say for you, Nelly. It would have a look of home about it before you were a day under the roof.” The young girl blushed deeply; for, humble as the praise might have sounded to other ears, to hers it was the most touching she could have listened to.