more than one advantage, and which, as it pleased him the more, the more he dwelt upon it, had speedily the effect of not only relieving his mind from this great anxiety, but of soothing his kindly feelings by suggesting the very agreeable idea that, while doing his duty towards his little daughter, he might perform an act of very useful charity towards the sister of his late (God preserve her soul in peace!) and highly-respected wife.

This sister-in-law was a widow, and a very poor one; for her worthless husband had spent all his own fortune, and hers too; and she was, moreover, childless. She was, also, a very gentle-tempered woman, a fact which Mr. Morris had very satisfactorily ascertained during the life-time of his departed lady, who had by no means confined the demonstrations of her own lively temper to himself; and many was the time, and oft, that he had witnessed scenes, between the gentle Mrs. Buckhurst and his spirited wife, which had left a strong impression upon his mind, that there certainly was no very great moral or mental resemblance between them.

Let it not, however, be for a moment sup

posed, that good Mr. Morris was in the least degree tempted to infringe any law, whether repealed or not, which refused its sanction to a marriage between brothers and sisters-in-law. Nothing of the kind ever entered his head; nothing of the kind ever entered his heart.

But he thought, and very justly, that she would be likely to make him an excellent housekeeper, and he thought, too, that, with the assistance of abundance of masters, his very important and precious little daughter might be educated to his heart's content, without his having to submit to the painful penance of sending her to school.

His fondness for her partook of, and accorded with, the general tone of his character in a very harmonious degree. It was quiet and placid, with no touch of any of that vehement sort of affection, which is so often found to produce more pain than pleasure. He liked very much to be amused, when little or no exertion of his own was necessary to produce the effect; and the follies and even the wilfulness of the vivacious little heiress were admirably well calculated for the purpose.

She was by no means a crying child; if she

had been, she would probably have been sent to school as soon after the funeral of her mother as convenient; but, as instead of crying she strutted about in her new black frock with infinite glee, and declared that she liked it better than all her other frocks, because it made her look so old and womanly, her surviving parent felt that his departed spouse had decidedly left him a treasure, and one that he would keep as long as he possibly could, or at any rate till some splendid marriage should come in her way.

My heroine's father was not what could be properly called a proud man, but he might have been fairly classed as a vain one. He was vain of his good house, of his well-furnished drawing-rooms, of the goodness of the wine with which he regaled his guests, whenever he had obtained permission to invite any; and he was vain of the comfortably clear fifteen hundred a-year which his industry and prudence had enabled him to realize. The sensations produced by all this were very pleasant, now that he found himself in a sufficiently tranquil state of mind to dwell upon them; and the vivacity and rosy cheeks of his now unscolded

little girl seemed to open to him a prospect of enjoyment of the same gratifying kind.

The consequence of all these pleasant meditations was his setting off exactly twenty-four hours after his daughter's lively observation on her black frock, to make a morning visit to the widow Buckhurst.

Nature never, perhaps, produced a more capricious contrast of character in one family, than when she gave Mrs. Buckhurst to be sister to Mrs. Morris.

Having said this, no further description of her temper and manners can be necessary, as whatever else remains to be known concerning her, is sure to be developed in the following pages; for Mr. Morris's civil proposal that she should for the future take up her abode with him, was received with unaffected, and very earnest gratitude; and all preliminaries respecting her immediate removal from her comfortless lodging, on the second floor of a small house in Store Street, to the thoroughly comfortable apartment proposed for her in the house of her brother-in-law, were got through with a degree of celerity, which clearly proved that the parties concerned in the business,

were very sincerely desirous to have the change effected with as little loss of time as possible.

"Is aunt Buckhurst going to be here always,

papa ?" said Charlotte, on seeing the large heavy box, which looked more like a venerable "old oak chest," than a travelling trunk, conveyed into the apartment prepared for its

owner.

"Yes, my dear; she is going to stay here always," replied her father, "and I hope you are glad to hear it."

"Glad? What should I be glad about? She never gave me any thing pretty in her life, and I don't think she knows what cake means; and she has no more cleverness about playing at anything, than if she were your great arm-chair. No, indeed, I am not at all glad."

"But you are not very sorry, I hope, are you, my dear?" said her father coaxingly.

"Sorry? What for? Good gracious! no, papa! I don't care at all about it, one way or the other," she replied, with rather a majestic toss of the head. "I shan't mind her any more than if she was the table. I never do."

The peace-loving widower had acquired so