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4
ETHEL CHURCHILL.

lastingly condemned to a silent life, and a closed heart."

"Better keep them so forever. Wherefore unlock to others treasures priceless to yourself, and valueless to them, unless the disclosure serve to render you their dupe and victim."

"How differently, my uncle, do we view the world!"

"The difference lies but in knowledge. I know that world—you know it not."

"Nay, I have learned it from yourself, and experience teaches well."

"Ay; but before we profit, the experience must be our own. A few short years, Henrietta! for, to a temper such as yours, life gives its lessons quickly; and we shall think but too much alike. I may not live to see it, but the time must come—and, ah! how soon when you will commune with yourself in the solitude, perhaps, of this very chamber, and admit, 'gloomy as were my uncle's views of existence, the reality is yet more dark.'"

"O, no! Fate cannot but have made an exception in my favour. Is there a single advantage that fortune has not blest me with—young, high-born, married to one of England's