ignation, but delight, when I think it may increase your happiness;
but were that step to destroy it, oh! then, then I could live no more.
I can endure my own sorrows, I can struggle with my own bitter lot,
I have some sources of consolation which enable me to endure my own
misery without repining; but yours, yours, Venetia, I could not bear.
No! if once I were to behold you lingering in life as your mother,
with blighted hopes and with a heart broken, if hearts can break, I
should not survive the spectacle; I know myself, Venetia, I could not
survive it.'

'But why anticipate such misery? Why indulge in such gloomy
forebodings? Am I not happy now? Do you not love me?'

Venetia had drawn her chair close to that of her mother; she sat by
her side and held her hand.

'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, after a pause of some minutes, and in a
low voice, 'I must speak to you on a subject on which we have never
conversed. I must speak to you;' and here Lady Annabel's voice dropped
lower and lower, but still its tones were distinct, although
she expressed herself with evident effort: 'I must speak to you
about--your father.'

Venetia uttered a faint cry, she clenched her mother's hand with a
convulsive grasp, and sank upon her bosom. She struggled to maintain
herself, but the first sound of that name from her mother's lips, and
all the long-suppressed emotions that it conjured up, overpowered her.
The blood seemed to desert her heart; still she did not faint; she
clung to Lady Annabel, pallid and shivering.

Her mother tenderly embraced her, she whispered to her words of great
affection, she attempted to comfort and console her. Venetia murmured,
'This is very foolish of me, mother; but speak, oh! speak of what I
have so long desired to hear.'

'Not now, Venetia.'

'Now, mother! yes, now! I am quite composed. I could not bear the
postponement of what you were about to say. I could not sleep, dear
mother, if you did not speak to me. It was only for a moment I was
overcome. See! I am quite composed.' And indeed she spoke in a calm
and steady voice, but her pale and suffering countenance expressed the
painful struggle which it cost her to command herself.

'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, 'it has been one of the objects of my
life, that you should not share my sorrows.'

Venetia pressed her mother's hand, but made no other reply.

'I concealed from you for years,' continued Lady Annabel, 'a
circumstance in which, indeed, you