Amory, lifting his
daughter's face and gazing into her glistening eyes, while he gently
strokes the disordered hair from her forehead, asks, in an accent of
touching appeal, "You will love me, then?"

"Oh, I do! I do!" exclaimed Gertrude, sealing his lips with kisses. His
hitherto unmoved countenance relaxes at this fervent assurance. He bows
his head upon her shoulder, and the strong man weeps. Her
self-possession all restored, at seeing him thus overcome, Gertrude
places her hand in his, and startles him from his position by the firm
and decided tone with which she whispers, "Come!"

"Whither?" exclaims he, looking up in surprise.

"To Emily."

With a half shudder and a mournful shake of the head, he retreats
instead of advancing in the direction in which she would lead him--"I
cannot."

"But she waits for you; she, too, weeps and longs and prays for your
coming."

"Emily!--you know not what you are saying!"

"Indeed, my father; it is you who are deceived. Emily does not hate you;
she never did. She believed you dead long ago; but your voice, though
heard but once, has half robbed her of her reason so entirely does she
love you still. Come, and she will tell you, better than I can, what a
wretched mistake has made martyrs of you both."

Emily, who had heard the voice of Willie Sullivan, as he bade Gertrude
farewell on the door-step, and rightly conjectured that it was he,
forbore making any inquiries for the absent girl at the tea-table, and
thinking it probable that she preferred to remain undisturbed, retired
to the sitting-room at the conclusion of the meal, where (as Mr. Graham
sought the library) she remained alone for more than an hour.

The refined taste which always made Emily's dress an index to the soft
purity of her character was never more strikingly developed than when
she wore, as on the present occasion, a flowing robe of white cashmere,
fastened at the waist with a silken girdle, and with full drapery
sleeves, whose lining and border of snowy silk could only have been
rivalled by the delicate hand and wrist which had escaped from beneath
their folds, and somewhat nervously played with the crimson fringe of a
shawl, worn in the chilly dining-room, and thrown carelessly over the
arm of the sofa. Supporting herself upon her elbow, she sat with her
head bent forward, and apparently deep in thought. Once Mrs. Prime
opened the door, looked around the room in search of the housekeeper,
and, not f