It is not always that the devotion of a parent is so entirely appreciated as in this case; all Mr. Lee's efforts to promote his daughter's happiness were crowned with entire success, and until the period mentioned above, no one had ever detected on her lovely brow the semblance of a cloud. But the course of nature cannot be altered; the petted child will one day grow into the wilful woman; and however it may have been only a pleasant task to follow the windings of the childish fancy ingenious in its caprice; and only amusing to submit to the childish tyranny which pursues its own beau-ideal of sport with reckless pertinacity; there sometimes comes a change when the spoiled darling takes her first step upon the threshold of maturity; when, with all the fresh vigor of youth in her untutored will, she begins to assert her privilege, to cater for her own happiness, and fashion her future according to the visions of her own fancy. Then comes in the world with its many and diversified claims; claims so vigorously enforced, but from which it is the first impulse of the young heart to turn with loathing: it cannot bear to believe its happy independence of all such considerations at an end; it does not submit easily to these new trammels. Ah! how differently has passed the previous life! Something holy gathers round a child; it seems to move superior to the base claims of the world and its paltry rewards; and although often, it must be confessed, the young intellect is early impressed with the idea that its best efforts should be devoted to the insuring of worldly approbation, still the little one's course of life is so distinct from the busy race to which we would train it, that we cannot if we would entirely chain down its thoughts; nay, we shrink before the pure innocence which cannot even understand our weakness; and often yield a tribute to its superior dignity by concealing our own care for such distinctions.