do you mean now?"

"Don't you see, papa, that my heart is breaking fast? If you will
not hear my words--if they cannot successfully plead for me--let my
declining health--let my pale and wasted cheek--let my want of spirits,
my want of appetite--and, above all, let that which you cannot see nor
feel--the sickness of my unhappy heart--plead for me. Permit me to go,
dear papa; and will you allow me to lean upon you to my own room?--for,
alas! I am not, after this painful excitement, able to go there myself.
Thank you, papa, thank you."

He was thus compelled to give her his arm, and, in doing so, was
surprised to feel the extraordinary tremor by which her frame was
shaken. On reaching her room, she turned round, and laying her head,
with an affectionate and supplicating confidence, once more upon his
breast, she whispered with streaming eyes, "Alas! my dear papa, you
forget, in urging me to marry this hateful profligate, that my heart, my
affections, my love--in the fullest, and purest, and most disinterested
sense--are irrevocably fixed upon another; and Dunroe, all mean and
unmanly as he is, knows this."

"He knows that--there, sit down--why do you tremble so?--Yes, but he
knows that what you consider an attachment is a mere girlish fancy, a
whimsical predilection that your own good-sense will show you the folly
of at a future time."

"Recollect, papa, that he has been extravagant, and is said to be
embarrassed; the truth is, sir, that the man values not your daughter,
but the property to which he thinks he will become entitled, and which
I have no doubt will be very welcome to his necessities. I feel that I
speak truth, and as a test of his selfishness, it will be only necessary
to acquaint him with the reappearance of my brother--your son and
heir--and you will be no further troubled by his importunities."

"Troubled by his importunity! Why, girl, it's I that am troubled with
apprehension lest he might discover the existence of your brother, and
draw off."

One broad gaze of wonder and dismay she turned upon him, and her face
became crimsoned with shame. She then covered it with her open hands,
and, turning round, placed her head upon the end of the sofa, and moaned
with a deep and bursting anguish, on hearing this acknowledgment of
deliberate baseness from his own lips.

The baronet understood her feelings, and regretted the words he had
uttered, but he resolved to bear the matter out.

"Don't be surprised,