Such was the course of events for some years till I reached the age of twenty, when the health of the baroness so completely and rapidly gave way, that messengers were sent off in all haste to call her husband to the side of her deathbed. He came, and, though he came unwillingly, yet he was evidently pained and struck at the sight of the ruin and decay which he now beheld. He was gloomy and sorrowful, and it might be some consolation to his dying wife to find that, when all was irrevocable, and neither tears nor regrets could recall the past, he mourned for the approaching loss of one whose worth he had not sufficiently estimated, and felt feelings of affection towards her which he had not known till it was too late. The Lady of Blancford died, and the grief of all, good and bad alike, followed her to the grave; for there was a sweetness, and a gentleness, and a kindness in her nature which touched the heart even of the selfish and the vicious, and made them mourn for her as soon as her virtues were no longer a living reproach to their errors. At the time of her death, her daughter and eldest child was little more than twelve years old, the two boys somewhat younger than eleven and ten; and well might the father, when he looked round upon their young faces, feel that his hearth was left desolate: well might he regret, in the bitterness of his heart, that he had not sufficiently valued the blessing he had possessed. That he felt such sensations I am perfectly sure, but he felt them with a degree of sullenness as well as sorrow. Conscience lashed him, but he bore its chastisement with obdurate pride, and murmured at the smart. I did not see him for several days after the funeral of his wife, and, indeed, since his return he had taken scarcely any notice of me, seeming not even to see me. But, soon after, I saw his eyes fix upon me, from time to time, with a dull and frowning aspect; and to bear such cold unkindness had by this time become a burden to me, which I was resolved to cast off. The one whom, of all others, I had loved best from my early days, was now gone; and, though I loved all her children, and especially Louisa, who now clung to me as her only prop and stay in her overpowering grief for her mother, yet I felt that I could not endure any longer the proud coldness of my cousin, since the tie between him and me, which his wife's care and tenderness had afforded, was broken for ever. "I have at least my father's sword," I thought; "With that he gained his living, and with it will I gain mine."