nd
deliberate violation of all the sacred principles of truth as this."

"You will expose me then, and disgrace me forever with this cursed
conscientious old blockhead? I tell you that he doubts my assertion as
touching your consent, and is coming to hear the truth from your own
lips. But hearken, girl, betray me to him, and by heavens you know not
the extent to which my vengeance will carry me."

He rose up, and glared at her in a manner that made her apprehensive for
her personal safety.

"Father," said she, growing pale, for the dialogue, brief as it was, had
brought the color into her cheeks, "will you permit me to withdraw? I am
quite unequal to these contests of temper and opinion; permit me, sir,
to withdraw. I have already told you, that provided you do not attempt
to force me into a marriage contrary to my wishes I shall never marry
contrary to yours."

The baronet swore a deep and blasphemous oath that he would enter into
no such stipulation. The thing, he said, was an evasion, an act of moral
fraud and deceit upon her part, and she should not escape from him.

"You wish to gain time, madam, to work out your own treacherous
purposes, and to defeat my intentions with respect to you; but it shall
not be. You must see Lord Cullamore; you must corroborate my assertions
to him; you must save me from shame and dishonor or dread the
consequences. A paltry sacrifice, indeed, to tell a fib to a doting old
peer, who thinks no one in the world honest or honorable but himself!"

"Think of the danger of what you ask," she replied; "think of the deep
iniquity--the horrible guilt, and the infamy of the crime into which
you wish to plunge me. Reflect that you are breaking down the restraints
of honor and conscience in iny heart; that you are defiling my soul
with falsehood; and that if I yield to you in this, every subsequent
temptation will beset me with more success, until my faith, truth,
honor, integrity, are gone forever--until I shall be lost. Is there no
sense of religion, father? Is there no future life? Is there no God--no
judgment? Father, in asking me to abet your falsehood, and sustain you
in your deceit, you transgress the limits of parental authority, and the
first principles of natural affection. You pervert them, you abuse them;
and, I must say, once and for all, that be the weight of your vengeance
what it may, I prefer bearing it to enduring the weight of a guilty
conscience."

The baronet rose, and