itted us to be left without a clew in the
most important of all questions. Eloquence may seek to confound it; but
it shall be my care to avoid its deceptive influence. I do not wish to
have my understanding perverted, and all the differences of things
concealed from my apprehension."

"Madam, madam! it would be impossible for you to hold this language, if
you had not always lived in this obscure retreat, if you had ever been
conversant with the passions and institutions of men."

"It may be so. And, if that be the case, I have great reason to be
thankful to my God, who has thus enabled me to preserve the innocence of
my heart, and the integrity of my understanding."

"Can you believe then that ignorance is the only, or the safest,
preservative of integrity?"

"Sir, I told you at first, and I repeat to you again, that all your
declamation is in vain. I wish you would have saved me and yourself that
pain which is the only thing that can possibly result from it. But let
us suppose that virtue could ever be the equivocal thing you would have
me believe. Is it possible, if you had been honest, that you would not
have acquainted me with your story? Is it possible, that you would have
left me to have been informed of it by a mere accident, and with all the
shocking aggravations you well knew that accident would give it? Is it
possible you should have violated the most sacred of all trusts, and
have led me unknowingly to admit to the intercourse of my children a
character, which if, as you pretend, it is substantially honest, you
cannot deny to be blasted and branded in the face of the whole world?
Go, sir; I despise you. You are a monster and not a man. I cannot tell
whether my personal situation misleads me; but, to my thinking, this
last action of yours is worse than all the rest. Nature has constituted
me the protector of my children. I shall always remember and resent the
indelible injury you have done them. You have wounded me to the very
heart, and have taught me to what a pitch the villainy of man can
extend."

"Madam, I can be silent no longer. I see that you have by some means
come to a hearing of the story of Mr. Falkland."

"I have. I am astonished you have the effrontery to pronounce his name.
That name has been a denomination, as far back as my memory can reach,
for the most exalted of mortals, the wisest and most generous of men."

"Madam, I owe it to myself to set you right on this subject. Mr.
Falkland-