another blossom that has bloomed to fade, and the tree that bore it
will never flourish more!"

He almost threw the child into Lady Peveril's arms, placed his hands
before his face, and wept aloud. Lady Peveril did not say "be
comforted," but she ventured to promise that the blossom should ripen
to fruit.

"Never, never!" said Bridgenorth; "take the unhappy child away, and
let me only know when I shall wear black for her--Wear black!" he
exclaimed, interrupting himself, "what other colour shall I wear
during the remainder of my life?"

"I will take the child for a season," said Lady Peveril, "since the
sight of her is so painful to you; and the little Alice shall share
the nursery of our Julian, until it shall be pleasure and not pain for
you to look on her."

"That hour will never come," said the unhappy father; "her doom is
written--she will follow the rest--God's will be done.--Lady, I thank
you--I trust her to your care; and I thank God that my eye shall not
see her dying agonies."

Without detaining the reader's attention longer on this painful theme,
it is enough to say that the Lady Peveril did undertake the duties of
a mother to the little orphan; and perhaps it was owing, in a great
measure, to her judicious treatment of the infant, that its feeble
hold of life was preserved, since the glimmering spark might probably
have been altogether smothered, had it, like the Major's former
children, undergone the over-care and over-nursing of a mother