And where was his sister, the eldest of the three, who was now twenty- five years of age?  Alas! she had grievously disappointed the hopes of both father and mother, having clandestinely married, when not yet arrived at womanhood, a man altogether beneath her in position.  From the day of that marriage Mr Huntingdon's heart and house were closed against her.  Not so the heart of her mother; but that mother pleaded with her husband in vain for a reconciliation, for permission even to have a single meeting with her erring child.  And so the poor mother's mind came under partial eclipse, and herself had been some years away from home under private superintendence, when the accident above recorded occurred to her husband and his sister.