orns to plead
its own acts, especially when they are on the side of virtue. But I,
alas, am forced to it; am forced to do that which I would otherwise
scorn and blush to do."

"Lucy," replied her father, who felt in his ambitious and tyrannical
soul the full force, not only of what she said, but of the fraud he had
practised on her, but which she never suspected: "Lucy, my child, you
will drive me mad. Perhaps I am wrong; but at the same time my heart is
so completely fixed upon this marriage, that if it be not brought about
I feel I shall go insane. The value of life would be lost to me, and
most probably I shall die the dishonorable death of a suicide."

"And have you no fear for me, my father--no apprehension that I may
escape from this my wretched destiny to the peace of the grave? But you
need not. Thank God, I trust and feel that my regard for His precepts,
and my perceptions of His providence, are too clear and too firm ever
to suffer me to fly like a coward from the post in life which He has
assigned me. But why, dear father, should you make me the miserable
victim of your ambition?--I am not ambitious."

"I know you are not: I never could get an honorable ambition instilled
into you."

"I am not mean, however--nay, I trust that I possess all that honest and
honorable pride which would prevent me from doing an unworthy act, or
one unbecoming either my sex or my position."

"You would not break your word, for instance, nor render your father
wretched, insane, mad, or, perhaps, cause his dreadful malady to return.
No--no--but yet fine talking is a fine thing. Madam, cease to plead your
virtues to me, unless you prove that you possess them by keeping your
honorable engagement made to Lord Dunroe, through the sacred medium of
your own father. Whatever you may do, don't attempt to involve me in
your disgrace."

"I am exhausted," she said, "and cannot speak any longer; but I will not
despair of you, father. No, my dear papa," she said, throwing her arms
about his neck, laying her head upon his bosom, and bursting into tears,
"I will not think that you could sacrifice your daughter. You will
relent for Lucy as Lucy did for you--but I feel weak. You know, papa,
how this fever on my spirits has worn me down; and, after all, the day
might come--and come with bitterness and remorse to your heart--when you
may be forced to feel that although you made your Lucy a countess she
did not remain a countess long."

"What