Oh, 'tis pleasant folly;
But when all life's paths they strew,
Then comes melancholy.
Poetry Past and Present.


Mary Ponsonby had led a life of change and wandering that had given
her few strong local attachments. The period she had spent at
Ormersfield, when she was from five to seven years old, had been the
most joyous part of her life, and had given her a strong feeling for
the place where she had lived with her mother, and in an atmosphere
of affection, free from the shadow of that skeleton in the house,
which had darkened her childhood more than she understood.

The great weakness of Mrs. Ponsonby's life had been her over-hasty
acceptance of a man, whom she did not thoroughly know, because her
delicacy had taken alarm at foolish gossip about herself and her
cousin. It was a folly that had been severely visited. Irreligious
himself, Mr. Ponsonby disliked his wife's strictness; he resented her
affection for her own family, gave way to dissipated habits, and made
her miserable both by violence and neglect. Born late of this
unhappy marriage, little Mary was his only substantial link to his
wife, and he had never been wanting in tenderness to her: but many a
storm had raged over the poor child's head; and, though she did not
know why the kind old Countess had come to remove her and her mother,
and 'papa' was still a loved and honoured title, she was fully
sensible of the calm security at Ormersfield.

When Mr. Ponsonby had recalled his wife on his appointment at Lima,
Mary had been left in England for education, under the charge of his