O never tell me of the equal distribution of happiness in this world! Let the mad dreamer preach it if he list to those equally mad, and for his own sad purposes; but let not man, immortal man, man gifted with reason and obedient to the voice in every enlightened one’s soul, herald such a monstrous absurdity! What had this young and faded creature gained--what joy--what blessing--what blissful moments had been hers--what bright dream had she dwelt in--what fond hallucination had enrapt her young being in her few brief days of infancy and childhood, that now just bursting into the pride and prime of woman, such a cloud should come over her fair sky, and with its folds, its thick folds, shut from her gaze every star of hope forever! Dwelt she in a fairy-land--where bright wings glanced hither and thither, touching and retouching its soft airs--its mellow sunsets--its streams and golden fountains with a newer beauty! and had her life like an unshadowed current in Eastern fable, moved on in one unbroken flood of happiness! Had fancy been hers--and imagination--and the dangerous gift of poesy--and the faculty to shape out her own existence unmoved by the realities of life--and her being been lifted up in high revel and communion with the great and good of former days, and the far remote treasures of purer existences! Had such blessings been hers! and in return for them must the wick of the lamp thus early burn to its socket--must society cast this flower from its bosom--must reason lose her dwelling place--and her young life just opening upon her with its flowers, and feelings, and passionate thoughts, and innocent gushes of tenderness, turn out a blank, a dead letter, and at one fell blow be cut off--and she like a useless weed or wreck tossed up by Ocean, be thrown out from her proper sphere--scorned--crushed--slandered--an insulted yet still beautiful thing--a mark for the rabble’s jeers, the clown’s coarse brutality, and the damning pity of a mock-charity close-fisted world! _Let her unambitious story give answer._ Luce Selden was a twin child. Her mother died in giving her birth, leaving her and a beautiful boy to their remaining yet now broken hearted father, and a victim to those sad crosses which motherless children must meet with from the very nature of the case--though that father was all in all to them, and though it was his pride to watch over and nourish these beautiful blossoms of a love, as pure as it was imperishable. He had married in New York, and came to P---- while a young man and just starting in life, and by industry and very fine talents had by the time he reached the meridian of life, amassed a splendid fortune. His talents and wealth forced the meed of praise from the rich, and his very uniform disinterested and noble charities won the blessings of the poor, and fortune seemed to have nothing to do but shower down her favors on his head.