MY THREE AUNITS; OR, LOWMINSTER. PART II. CHAPTER I.

'But thou, frail heart and weak, hast turned from all, To worship pleasure's shadow on the wall.' As I purpose writing rather of my three aunts than of myself, I may pass over without comment my own tran- quil life, and only relate such circumstances as threw a light on their history, which was to me a most interesting study, for if ever Aunt Dorothea told me any stories, they had reference to former days. She was not one of those who deem family traditions of no value, and much of her

spare time was devoted to committing to paper her own recollections of those who had gone before her. All that she knew of the history of our race she taught me, and I could even now say who all my grandfathers married as far back as the seventh generation. She described with a minuteness which never wearied me every room at Shothurst, (for so the property which had once been ours was called,) until she raised in me a most lively desire to see the place, which, however, I little thought it would ever be in her power to gratify. But one evening when we were, as was our wont, sitting in total silence, she broke the stillness by asking my father if he had not a great wish to see his old home again. She got only a lukewarm kind of answer, which did not, however, deter her from continuing the subject. 'I ask you,' she said, 'because I have quite made up my own mind to go over there some day. I must see the place again before I die, and I wish to show to this child the home of her ancestors.' There was a general exclamation of surprise, and some doubt was expressed as to the possibility of doing so, but Aunt Dorothea had settled everything in her own mind, and was quite ready to prove the feasibility of her plan. Within half a mile of Shothurst lived an old nurse of my father's, and to her she had written proposing to come over some day for a few hours, and to bring me with her, meaning to wait until the summer, for we were then in the middle of winter ; but Mrs. Watson writing back word...