proportions, her countenance was intelligent and highly expressive,
whilst in her fair complexion, the pure red and white, seemed to have
been most judiciously combined. To all these embellishments, permit us
to add, a head of luxuriant hair, of a golden auburn color, with a pair
of large and sparkling blue eyes, shaded by long, dark, silken eye
lashes, and the personal portrait of our heroine is complete. Her
character, also, in many of its traits was as good as her person was
beautiful. The bland sweetness of her disposition and the apparent
mildness of her temper, had even in the years of her childhood, endeared
her to all who happened to be within reach of her acquaintance, but
still she had faults, for there are none perfect, no, not one. Ellen
Armstrong was fanciful, wayward, and highly romantic, a being of strong
and ardent passions which would sometimes, in spite of the watchful
vigilance which she always endeavored to keep over them, get the better
of her right judgment, and high sense of rectitude.

Presuming, kind reader, that you may have inferred that sweet Ellen
Armstrong, as the Earl was wont to term her, was his daughter, we must
now undeceive you, stating that such was not the case. The history of
her connection with the earl was as follows:

As he returned home from an exciting session of the House of Peers, late
on a cold night in December, 1703, (nearly 14 years previous to the date
of the commencement of our story,) he was greatly surprised, upon
entering the drawing-room of his elegant mansion, to find his wife
busily employed in fondling and carressing a beautiful infant,
apparently not more than two or three weeks old.

'What does this all mean, Lady Armstrong?' exclaimed the earl, as soon
as his surprise had in a measure subsided.