That young lady had been removed from the Scarborough boarding-school to a highly respectable establishment at Brompton, within a few months of her mother's marriage with Mr. Sheldon. She had been a rosy-cheeked young damsel in pinafores at the time of that event, too young to express any strong feeling upon the subject of her mother's second choice; but not too young to feel the loss of her father very deeply. Tom Halliday had been fondly attached to that bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked damsel of nine years' growth, and the girl had fully reciprocated his affection. How often they had talked together of the future, which was to be so delightful for them both; the new farm, which was to be such a paradise in comparison to Hyley; the pony that Charlotte was to ride when she should be old enough to wear a habit like a lady, and to go about with her father to market-towns and corn-exchanges! The little girl had remembered all this, and had most bitterly lamented the loss of that dear and loving father.

She remembered it all to this day; she regretted her loss to this day, though she was nearly of age, and on the point of leaving school for ever, after having prolonged her school-days considerably beyond the usual period, at the express wish of her stepfather. To say that she disliked Mr. Sheldon is only to admit that she was subject to the natural prejudices of humanity. He had usurped the place of a beloved father, and he was in every way the opposite of that father. He had come between Charlotte Halliday and her mother, and had so absorbed the weak little woman into himself, as to leave Charlotte quite alone in the world. And yet he did his duty as few stepfathers do it. Charlotte admitted that he was very kind to her, that he was an excellent husband, and altogether the most conscientious and respectable of mankind; but she admitted with equal candour that she had never been able to like him. "I daresay it is very wicked of me not to be fond of him, when he is so good and generous to me," she said to her chosen friend and companion; "but I never can feel quite at home with him. I try to think of him as a father sometimes, but I never can get over the 'step.' Do you know I have dreamed of him sometimes? and though he is so kind to me in reality, I always fancy him cruel to me in my dreams. I suppose it is on account of his black eyes and black whiskers," added Miss Halliday, in a meditative tone. "It is certainly a misfortune for a person to have blacker eyes and whiskers than the rest of the world; for there seems something stern and hard, and almost murderous, in such excessive blackness."