tram, Isabel Wardour, and Diana Vernon, are all the only daughters of a widowed father. It would be difficult, though interesting, to trace in what this predilection of Scott's originated. Such a tie is one of nature's most sacred and most touching. How deep must be the feeling of the bereaved parent who cannot look on the fair face of his child without recalling a face, once the fairest and the dearest in the world: the shadow of the grave hangs around the infant playfulness of the orphan, and even the hopes of the present must come tinged with something of sadness from the past. How soon too, with the quick feelings of her sex, would the orphan-girl learn that consolation needed to be mixed with her affection; a vague pity would mingle with her caresses, and each party would think there required so much allowance to be made for the other—and allowances are the golden links of domestic happiness. The memory of the departed would be a perpetual bond of union—the father would think how sad for his child was the loss of a mother's care; while the daughter would feel a more anxious tenderness from knowing that it was hers to supply a tenderness even more anxious than her own. The affection of his daughter throws a respectability around Sir Arthur; she loves him, she humours his little foibles, and, for her sake, others also bear with him.
Isabella Wardour's kindness of heart is indicated
