“Blowing between the stems, the forest air Had loosened the brown curls of Vivian’s hair, Which played o’er her flushed cheeks; and her blue eyes Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise.” ISEULT OF BRITTANY. It was about two months after the death of Mrs. Duncan, when the cheering news arrived at the old Vicarage, that the ship in which Maurice Duncan was serving had reached Chatham, and was to be paid off immediately. The letter was indeed a sunbeam thrown upon a gloomy path. Some change was greatly wanted at home. Mr. Duncan was a man of deep and true piety, but of little judgment in worldly matters. It would not be easy to find one less fitted to guide aright four girls like his daughters: he had no idea of what was good or hurtful to them. In education, indeed, both intellectual and religious, he could safely lead them; but of their physical natures he was quite ignorant. He had no quickness of perception. He did not see that Gwyneth was becoming daily more gloomy and abstracted, yielding to fanciful terrors, all the more powerful because she dared not speak of them. He did not discover that Sybil was giving way to indolence and repining, loving to indulge in visionary dreams of future happiness, or in retrospective pictures of past bliss, but shrinking from real, actual exertion, and the toils of every-day life. Still less did he perceive that Hilary was working beyond her strength, and sinking under a weight of responsibility which she felt too vividly to endure safely.