oo clear."

"_It is false!_" burst with startling almost overwhelming power from the
lips of Emmeline, as she sprung with the strength of agony from her
seat, and stood with the suddenness of a vision, before her parents, a
bright hectic spot burning on either cheek, rendering her usually mild
eyes painfully brilliant. She had sat as if spell-bound, drinking in
every word. She _knew_ the tale was false, but yet each word had fallen
like brands of heated iron on her already scorching brain; that they
should dare to breathe such a tale against him, whose fair fame she knew
was unstained, link his pure name with infamy; and her father, too,
believed it. She did not scream, though there was that within which
longed for such relief. She did not faint, though every limb had lost
its power. A moment's strength and energy alike returned, and she
bounded forward. "It is false!" she again exclaimed, and her parents
started in alarm at her agonized tone; "false as the false villain that
dared stain the fair fame of another with his own base crime. Arthur
Myrvin is not the father of that child; Arthur Myrvin was not the
destroyer of Mary Brookes. Go and ask Nurse Langford: she who hung over
poor Mary's dying bed; who received from her own cold lips the name of
the father of her child; she who was alone near her when she died. Ask
her, and she will tell you the wretch, who has prejudiced all minds
against the good, the pure, the noble; the villain, the cruel
despicable villain, who rested not till his base arts had ruined
the--the--virtuous; that Jefferies, the canting hypocrite, the wretched
miscreant, who has won all hearts because he speaks so fair, he, he
alone is guilty. Put the question to him; let Nurse Langford ask him if
the dying spoke falsely when she named him, and his guilt will be
written on his brow. Arthur Myrvin did visit that cottage; Mary had
confessed a crime, she said not what, and implored his prayers; he
soothed her bodily and mental sufferings, he robbed death of its
terrors, and his only grief at leaving the village was, that she would
miss his aid, for that crime could not be confessed to another; and they
dare to accuse him of sin, he who is as good, as pure, as--" For one
second she paused, choked by inward agony, but ere either her father or
mother could address her, she continued, in an even wilder tone,--"Why
did Arthur Myrvin leave this neighbourhood? why did he go hence so
suddenly--so painfully? bec