with the progress of our story, the next of our voyagers in order of
description, is his fair niece, Mary Hamilton. In form, as we have
before said, she was stately and beautiful, her features were striking
and regular, though they could not be called pre-eminently beautiful,
whilst her complexion was fair and elegantly transparent. Her hair,
which was as dark in color as the plumage of the raven, as it clustered
in short, rich, silken curls over her small white neck, gave conclusive
evidence, when combined to a pair of large, languishing black eyes, that
she was not born beneath the ruddy influence of England's cold and
vacillating climate. And such was the fact, for the mother that bore her
was of pure Castilian blood, who had fallen in love with and married
William Hamilton, whilst residing with her father, who, at that time,
held the high situation of Governor of the Island of Cuba. Under the
warm and enervating influences of the climate of this island, Mary
Hamilton first saw the light, but long before she had learnt to lisp her
mother's name, she was sent to England, there to receive, through the
agency of her uncle, an education calculated to fit her for the station
she would be called upon to assume, as the only child and heir of the
ancient house of Hamilton. As she advanced from infancy to childhood,
and her young mind began gradually to expand, nature (that beautiful but
mystic chain which connects man with his Creator,) prompted her to ask
for her mother. The answer which fell from her aunt's lips, in cold and
icy tones, which precluded all farther questioning, was,

'Mary, your maternal parent is dead, but I will be a mother to you so
long as I live, and my husband shall be to you an indulgent father. And
now, dear Mary,' continued Lady Armstrong, 'for various reasons which
cannot now be explained, I must strictly prohibit you from alluding to
your real mother in my presence, or that of my husband.'