bed in a perplexing
business; and this may be the reason why he has not written."

"Father,"--Fanny's words were uttered slowly and impressively--"if
you are in any manner involved in business with Mr. Lyon--if you
have any thing at stake through confidence in him--get free from the
connection as early as possible. He is no true man. With the
fascinating qualities of the serpent, he has also the power to
sting."

"I fear, my daughter," said Mr. Markland, "that too great a
revulsion has taken place in your feelings toward him; that wounded
pride is becoming unduly active."

"Pride!" ejaculated Fanny--and her face, that had flushed, grew pale
again--"pride! Oh, father! how sadly you misjudge your child!
No--no. I was for months in the blinding mazes of a delicious dream;
but I am awake now--fully awake, and older--how much older it makes
me shudder to think--than I was when lulled into slumber by melodies
so new, and wild, and sweet, that it seemed as if I had entered
another state of existence. Yes, father, I am awake now; startled
suddenly from visions of joy and beauty into icy realities, like
thousands of other dreamers around me. Pride? Oh, my father!"

And Fanny laid her head down upon the breast of her parent, and wept
bitterly.

Mr. Markland was at a loss what answer to make. So entire a change
in the feelings of his daughter toward Mr. Lyon was unsuspected, and
he scarcely knew how to explain the fact. Fascinated as she had
been, he had looked for nothing else but a clinging to his image
even in coldness and neglect. That she would seek to obliterate that
image from her heart, as an evil thing, was something he had not for
an instant expected. He did not know how, treasured up in tenderest
infancy, through sunny childhood, and in sweetly dawning maidenhood,
innocence and truth had formed for her a talisman by which the
qualities of others might be tested. At the first approach of Mr.
Lyon this had given instinctive warning; but his personal
attractions were so great, and her father's approving confidence of
the man so strong, that the inward monitor was unheeded. But, after
a long silence following a series of impassioned letters, to find
herself alluded to in this cold and distant way revealed a state of
feeling in the man she loved so wildly, that proved him false beyond
all question. Like one standing on a mountain-top, who suddenly
finds the ground giving way beneath his feet, she felt herself
sweepin