sun-warmed air, which awoke a smile of welcome as it breathed on her
faded cheek, and her eyes gazed on the scene, in fond recognition.

It had been the home of Mrs. Ponsonby's childhood; and the slopes of
turf and belts of dark ilex were fraught with many a recollection of
girlish musings, youthful visions, and later, intervals of
tranquillity and repose. After fourteen years spent in South
America, how many threads she had to take up again! She had been as
a sister to her cousin, Lord Ormersfield, and had shared more of his
confidence than any other person during their earlier years, but
afterwards their intercourse had necessarily been confined to brief
and guarded letters. She had found him unchanged in his kindness to
herself, and she was the more led to ponder on the grave, stern
impassiveness of his manner to others, and to try to understand the
tone of mind that it indicated.

She recalled him as he had been in his first youth--reserved,
sensible, thoughtful, but with the fire of ambition burning strongly
within, and ever and anon flashing forth vividly, repressed at once
as too demonstrative, but filling her with enthusiastic admiration.
She remembered him calmly and manfully meeting the shock of the
failure, that would, he knew, fetter and encumber him through life--
how resolutely he had faced the difficulties, how unselfishly he had
put himself out of the question, how uprightly he had dealt by the
creditors, how considerately by his father and aunt, how wise and
moderate his proceedings had been throughout. She recollected how
she had shared his aspirations, and gloried in his consistent and
prudent course, without perceiving what sorrow had since taught her-
that ambition was to him what pleasure was to other young men. What
had it not been to her when that ambition began to be gratified! when