AND

Other Stories of the Heart.

BY MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ.

AUTHOR OF "LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE," "LINDA," RENA," "ROBERT GRAHAM," "EOLINE,” “COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE," ETC.

"His years but young, but his experience old,

His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
And in a word (for far behind his worth,

Come all the praises that I now bestow),

He is complete in feature, and in mind,

With all good grace to grace a gentleman.”—Shakspeare. "Innocence unmoved

At a false accusation, doth the more

Confirm itself; and guilt is best discovered

By its own fears."-Nabb.

Philadelphia:

T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET

EN

ENTERED, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

T. B. PETERSON,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS.

t

THE

BANISHED SON.

CHAPTER I.

"OH! that uncle would forgive him!"

Thus ejaculated a young girl, as she sat, with her hands folded over her knees, by the side of a waning fire.

"What a sad, sad evening this has been to me, though all the while I have been compelled to smile and look happy!"

There was certainly nothing in the apartment in which she was seated that seemed congenial with sadness. It was a large and splendidly illuminated room, richly carpeted and furnished, and, from the flowers, which not only decorated the vases, but hung in gay festoons around the walls, it had evidently been adorned for some festive occasion. Rare and beautiful flowers they were, mostly green-house blossoms, relieved by the dark evergreens with which they were entwined, for the flowers of summer were long since faded and gone.

Though the fire, by which the young girl was seated, was now nothing more than a heap of glowing embers, it had lately burned with intense heat, so that every corner of that large apartment was filled with the genial warmth of the tropic latitudes. The dress of the young girl, who sat so lonely and dejected in the midst of those gay garlands, was in keeping with the festive character of the scene. A robe of white gauze, falling in transparent folds over a rich under-dress of satin, gave that gossamer grace to her figure which airy drapery alone can impart. A wreath of white roses-mimic, it is true, but so exquisitely natural one could almost see the petals curl and tremble amidst the tresses they adorned—was bound

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