The story is truthful, plaintive, and full of beauty. At a very early age Eleanor Raymond loses her father, who has held a high appointment in India, and news of his death is brought while she is still a child to her mother's house in England. The bearer of the sad intelligence is David Stuart, of Dunleath, the penniless representative of a ruined Scottish house. David had been secretary to Sir John Raymond, whose eyes he had closed, and he comes to the widow recommended to her sisterly love, and the appointed guardian of her youthful daughter. Lady Raymond, it must be added, had been previously married, and is the mother of a burly sailor, promoted by Sir John's interest, and at sea at the time of his stepfather's death. We need not stay to dwell upon the feeble helplessness, physical and mental, of her Ladyship, or to contrast it with the overbearing disposition of her son, whose strong attachment to his mother is the redeeming feature of his character. The young ex-secretary and present guardian proceeds to the fulfilment of his duty, as it seems, with a conscientious mind. His ward is an heiress, and will be surrounded with trials of many kinds. She is fair to behold, ingenuous, trustful, is neglected by her surviving parent,--less from want of affection than from lack of interest--who, then, so suited for monitor and instructor both, as the highly-disciplined and well-informed Stuart himself? David has been a great traveller, has read much, and observed more. His intellect is commanding, and he is noble in form. He notes the quickness of his ward, is captivated by her girlish enthusiasm and untiring zeal. He will engage no masters when he can teach so accurately himself. She requires no instructors but the master from whom she learns so willingly and so well. Perilous devotion of a teacher (it may be of twenty) with so fond a pupil, though her years number but ten! What man of twenty-eight ever thought himself old in the presence of a maiden of eighteen? What girl of eighteen ever deemed herself too young to be wooed and won by a man of twenty-eight? For eight years guardian and ward live under one roof, partaking of the same influences, the same pleasures, the same daily occupations, and divided from all around them by the superiority of their own minds and the congeniality of their pursuits. Pity the poor country girl in constant presence of that cultivated intellect, fine understanding, and beaming countenance, never weary of smiling on her life. What wonder that as the flower expands in beauty it gradually unfolds to blissful consciousness? Eleanor secretly loves her guardian, and glories in the passion. He is poor, but she is rich beyond her wishes, did her wishes comprehend aught else but the desire to make him happy. Dunleath has passed from David Stuart's family. Eleanor has listened a thousand times to her guardian's fond regrets for his lost inheritance, and to the descriptions of that once happy home, the