The eyes of my Eliza sparkled with delight at this proposal. She
regarded this youth with a sisterly affection, and considered his
candour, in this respect, as an unerring test of his rectitude. She was
prepared to hear and to forgive the errors of inexperience and
precipitation. I did not fully participate in her satisfaction, but was
nevertheless most zealously disposed to listen to his narrative.

My engagements obliged me to postpone this rehearsal till late in the
evening. Collected then round a cheerful hearth, exempt from all
likelihood of interruption from without, and our babe's unpractised
senses shut up in the sweetest and profoundest sleep, Mervyn, after a
pause of recollection, began.




CHAPTER II.


My natal soil is Chester county. My father had a small farm, on which he
has been able, by industry, to maintain himself and a numerous family.
He has had many children, but some defect in the constitution of our
mother has been fatal to all of them but me. They died successively as
they attained the age of nineteen or twenty, and, since I have not yet
reached that age, I may reasonably look for the same premature fate. In
the spring of last year my mother followed her fifth child to the grave,
and three months afterwards died herself.

My constitution has always been frail, and, till the death of my mother,