And during the eighteen years of
that girl's life, from the hour of her mother's death to the day
when she was left without hope in the world, Rosalie _had_ found a
parent in the rigid but always kind and just Mary Melville.
This widow lady had one son; he was four years old when her husband
died, which was the very year that the little Rosalie was brought to
Melville House. The boy's father had been considered a man of great
wealth, but when his affairs were settled, after his decease, it was
found that the debts of the estate being paid, little more than a
competency remained for the widow. But the lady was fitted, by a
life of self-discipline, even in her luxurious home, to calmly meet
this emergency. With the remnant of an imagined fortune, she retired
to an humbler residence, where, in quiet retirement, she gave her
time to managing household affairs, and superintending the home
education of the children.
Her son Duncan, and the young Rosalie, had grown up together, until
the girl's twelfth birth-day, constant playmates and pupils in the
same school. No one, not even the busiest busy-body, had ever been
able to detect the slightest partiality in Mrs.
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