circumstantial evidences which he could not explain away to the
satisfaction of friends or the acquittal of a short-sighted world--had
there not been, were there not always, many innocent men similarly
afflicted? And who could hear Waife talk, or look on his arch smile, and
not feel that he was innocent? So, at least, thought Caroline Montfort.
Naturally; for if, in her essentially woman-like character, there was one
all-pervading and all-predominant attribute, it was PITY. Lead Fate
placed her under circumstances fitted to ripen into genial development
all her exquisite forces of soul, her true post in this life would have
been that of the SOOTHER. What a child to some grief-worn father! What
a wife to some toiling, aspiring, sensitive man of genius! What a mother
to some suffering child! It seemed as if it were necessary to her to
have something to compassionate and foster. She was sad when there was
no one to comfort; but her smile was like a sunbeam from Eden when it
chanced on a sorrow it could brighten away. Out of this very sympathy
came her faults--faults of reasoning and judgment. Prudent in her own
chilling path through what the world calls temptations, because so
ineffably pure--because, to Fashion's light tempters, her very thought
was as closed, as

"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"

was the ear of Sabrina to the comrades of Comus,--yet place before her
some gentle scheme that seemed fraught with a blessing for others, and
straightway her fancy embraced it, prudence faded--she saw not the
obstacles, weighed not the chances against it. Charity to her did not
come alone, but with its sister twins, Hope and Faith.

Thus, benignly for the old man and the fair child, years rolled on till
Lord Montfort's sudden death, and his widow was called upon to exchange