The Adopted Daughter: A Tale for Young Persons

e up a tend

r, in endeavouring to alleviate those of her tenants and the neighbouring poor. Her father, Mr. Woodville, was a great fox-hunter, and on the death of his wife, which he did not feel so keenly as might be expected from the amiable character she possessed, earnestly entreated Mrs. Campbell, who was the wife of his favourite tenant, to take charge of the helpless infant. He could have wished she had been a boy, as she was his only child; "yet," said he, "she must be taken care of, though a female, and I will not injure the fortune to which she will be entitled; and by and by, when she is old enough, I shall be glad to see her at the head of my table;" but while she was a baby, he thought if he entrusted her to a careful nurse, such as he was sure Mrs. Camp

new toy, or sweetmeat, or sugar-plums, the servants at home being ordered to have something nice always in readiness for him to take to their young mistress. These repeated presents insured him a welcome from his daughter, nor did he suspect that he was buying that love wh

e companions of her childhood were living, she could by adding to their comforts, increase her own. Here she found not the farmer Campbell she had formerly called her father, but his son, whom she once loved as a brother; her good old nurse had died a few years before, and her foster sister also, but the latter had left a child, which the present Mr. and Mrs. Campbell brought up as their own. There were but two houses of any size in the village of Downash, except the parsonage, which was occasionally occupied by the vicar, a single man, who lost the

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sentiments she called at the farm, within a few weeks after her arrival at Rosewood, and found Mr. and Mrs. Campbell sensible of her condescension, though not servilely so. They were both well informed, and paid her the respect which was due to her as the owner of their farm; nor were they ashamed to acknowledge her their superior, not only from her possessing more money, but from the difference the distinctions of society had made between them. She found the farmer sitting with two children on his knee, and his wife with an infant on hers, in the very place where the late Mrs. Campbell used to sit, and to whom she had often ran with the sweet things her father brought her while a child under her care. The shelves, the chairs, and oaken tables were the same as when she lived there, except that several books were added to the simple lib

'am?" said she, "I am sure y

for me; these walls and that face are no strangers to me:-do you not recollect me, Mr. Campbell?" continued she, holdin

ied, "and esteem myself obliged t

hose I left at the farm, and only wish there were now more of them for me to meet. Your dear mother I know is dead; but my sister Anna, where is she?

Mr. Campbell; "I lost my sister whe

ead also! May you find in the present Mrs. Campbell as kind a nurse as I did in the fo

a farm about fourteen miles

I am that you are not here! she was the only one I

death, for she was so beloved by her own family, that she felt his unkindness doubly keen. This little one is now three years old; on her death-bed she begged us to take it,

tand of whom he spoke, but as if wishing to be certain it was not herself, she to

me leave, Madam," added he, "to introduce my wife to you," who still stood contemplating the featur

r, when a child?"

s Dallwyn, and her father the owne

not obliterated the kindness of your family from my memory, and I cannot forget that to your mother's care I owe my preservation in

elf (pointing to the place where she used to deposit the sweet things she res

were happy days," said she; "would I c

been less happy," replied the farmer, "but let u

ed him for expressing it. "I wish," said she, "to forget all distinctions of rank between us, for I have found very little to recompense

but though you are so kind as to forget the distinction there is between us, I trust we never shall. Consider us, Madam, as the most

e used to play with Anna and her brothers, fixed a day for Mr. and Mrs. Campbell to dine with

d society: had his mother been alive, I should have been happy to have made her comfortable; but at least I will do good to her sons.

ge. "But it shall be by employing them," thought she, and she immediately planned several alterations in her gardens and