to keep his daughter's hands full of work, and her heart full of love, and left her little chance or disposition for any wandering fancies. All the exuberant affection of her girlhood, all the mature attachment of later years, were concentrated upon him alone. Her youth waned, her freshness faded, her indomitable courage and cheerfulness quailed a little before the ever-increasing burdens of her life; but through it all, in joy and sorrow, no shadow of a suitor stands beckoning by her side. Her serene old age was haunted by no dim voices crying out of the past for the joy which had slipped from her grasp. She wrote love-stories by the score, always approaching the subject from the outside, and treating it with the easy conventionality, the generous yet imperfect sympathy of a warm-hearted woman not prone to analyze motives. They are very pleasant stories for the most part, sensible, healthy, and happy; but they are not convincing. The reader feels that if Polly did not marry Joe she would be just as well satisfied with William, and that if Edwin failed to win Angelina he would soon
