introduce to his domains a new mistress. No one was more taken by
surprise than were Winnie and Natalie. They could hardly credit their
senses, when Mr. Santon congratulated his daughter on the prospect of
having a new mother.

Poor Winnie! she tried to smile, and she tried to make one of her most
brilliant remarks, as she congratulated her father on his happiness; yet
it was not like herself, and Natalie could see, what Mr. Santon in his
blindness of joy did not discern,--there was no heart in his daughter's
mechanical tones. Winnie had not as yet seen her intended mother-in-law;
she might be all that could be desired of one standing in that peculiar
relation, and she might be otherwise; it was not that which had quelled
the buoyant spirits of the heiress, it was that she shrank from the
thought of any one so soon filling her own dear mother's station, and
she hid her face in Natalie's golden tresses, as her father left the
room, and burst into tears.

"Dear, dear Natalie," she exclaimed, "you will think me so wicked! But I
wanted no other mother than you! Though you are younger than myself, I
have learned to look up to you, as a valuable bequest left me by my
mother, who smiled even in death, when you promised never to forget me.
We are happy now; why need a stranger come among us? Oh, Natalie, I
never can part from you!"

"Hush! hush! dear Winnie, you must not think thus! you may come to love
your new mother, filling the most sanguine wishes of your father's
heart, who would be wretched, if his daughter were not reconciled to her
who will stand in the nearest relation to him."

And thus the Sea-flower endeavored to prepare Winnie's mind for