succeeded to a sum of twelve thousand pounds in the funds, and an income
in landed property of seven hundred per annum. He now felt himself more
independent than he had ever been, and with this advantage, that his
bitter experience of a heartless world had completely cured him of
all tendency to extravagance. And now he would have enjoyed as much
happiness as is the usual lot of man, were it not that the shadow of
death fell upon his house, and cast its cold blight upon his children.
Ere three years had elapsed he saw his eldest daughter fade out of life,
and in less than two more his eldest son was laid beside her in the
same grave. Decline, the poetry of death, in its deadly beauty came
upon them, and whilst it sang its song of life and hope to their hearts,
treacherously withdrew them to darkness and the worm.

Osborne's feelings were those of thoughtlessness and extravagance; but
he had never been either a libertine or a profligate, although the world
forbore not, when it found him humbled in his poverty, to bring such
charges against him. In truth, he was full of kindness, and no parent
ever loved his children with deeper or more devoted affection. The death
of his noble son and beautiful girl brought down his spirit to the
most mournful depths of affliction. Still he had two left, and, as
it happened, the most beautiful, and more than equally possessed his
affections. To them was gradually transferred that melancholy love which
the heart of the sorrowing father had carried into the grave of the
departed; and alas, it appeared as if it had come back to those who
lived loaded with the malady of the dead. The health of the surviving
boy became delicate, and by the advice of his physician, who pronounced
the air in which they lived unfavorable,--Osborne, on hearing that Mr.
Williams, a distant relation, was about to dispose of his house and
grounds, immediately became the purchaser. The situation, which had
a southern aspect, was dry and healthy, the air pure and genial, and,