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THE PURITAN'S DAUGHTER. 



A SHORT distance from Hereford, on the banks of the lovely W5'e, 

 there stood, somewhere about the vear 1665, a mansion: the architec- 

 tural pretensions of which, though not of the first order, were yet 

 sufficiently good as to evince that it had been erected by a person of 

 taste and consideration. Broorasgrove, as it was called, was the abode 

 of a gentleman, Sir Ralph Desrick by name, who possessed considerable 

 property and influence in the county. He was somewhat gloomy and 

 stern, being rather given to the religious fanaticism of the times, and a 

 strong supporter of the Protector and his measures. His family con- 

 sisted of an only daughter, whose birth preceded her mother's death but 

 a few hours. 



Sir Ralph had loved his wife with a passion almost amounting to 

 idolatry ; he had wooed and won her from a host of suitors, and the 

 short year they had passed together, had been to him one round of 

 happiness, pure and unalloyed ; and the violence of his grief, when 

 bereft of her, at first gave much apprehension to his friends, but after 

 remaining some days in a state almost bordering upon madness, his 

 attention was suddenly attracted by the faint cry of a child in one of 

 the adjoining rooms ; he listened an instant, and something seemed to 

 cross his recollection, for starting up with hasty and heavy stride, he 

 sought the apartment whence the sound proceeded, and almost 

 forcing, rather than opening, the door, he entered the room where the 

 servant was nursing the child. The attendant was at first alarmed at 

 having the infant snatched from her, but was somewhat assured, on 

 finding that Sir Ralph held it quietly in his arms, gazing intently upon 

 its featmes for some moments. After a short time his wildness ap- 

 peared to calm down, for the child seemed to smile at him, and moved 

 its little arms, as though it were pleased by the notice of its only parent. 

 He pressed its forehead to his lips, looked once more with fixed attention 

 on its features, and replacing it in the nurse's arms, left the room as 

 hastily as he had entered. 



From that day he became an altered man — never again seeking the 

 pleasures and amusements of the world, but living- with all the gloomy 

 austerity of one who had determined to avoid the idle frivolities of the 

 period, passing nearly the whole of his time in fondling his infant 

 daughter. Grace Desrick was, indeed, a child of more than common 

 beauty — and what, in her father's eyes, surpassed all her loveliness, was 

 the exact image of her departed mother; she was of fair complexion, with 

 sparkling blue eyes, and her long light-coloured ringlets fell around her 

 in luxuriant profusion ; her sylph-like figure knew not the trammels of 

 a vicious fashion, but grew in all the strength and beauty of its active 

 proportion. With what satisfaction did Sir Ralph watch, day by day, 

 the expansion of her fair form, and mark with what readiness she 

 comprehended the almost masculine instruction he bestowed upon her. 

 6ut still he could not force the gloomv precepts he sought at times 



M.M.— 3. S ■ 



