s
one of ourselves."

I thanked her, and said I would shake hands with my old friend before I
went to my room. We parted at the bedroom door.

It is out of my power to describe the shock that overpowered me when I
first saw the Minister again, after the long interval of time that had
separated us. Nothing that his daughter said, nothing that I myself
anticipated, had prepared me for that lamentable change. For the moment,
I was not sufficiently master of myself to be able to speak to him. He
added to my embarrassment by the humility of his manner, and the formal
elaboration of his apologies.

"I feel painfully that I have taken a liberty with you," he said,
"after the long estrangement between us--for which my want of Christian
forbearance is to blame. Forgive it, sir, and forget it. I hope to
show that necessity justifies my presumption, in subjecting you to a
wearisome journey for my sake."

Beginning to recover myself, I begged that he would make no more
excuses. My interruption seemed to confuse him.

"I wished to say," he went on, "that you are the one man who can
understand me. There is my only reason for asking to see you, and
looking forward as I do to your advice. You remember the night--or was
it the day?--before that miserable woman was hanged? You were the only
person present when I agreed to adopt the poor little creature, stained
already (one may say) by its mother's infamy. I think your wisdom
foresaw what a terrible responsibility I was undertaking; you tried to
prevent it. Well! well! you have been in my confidence--you only. Mind!
nobody in this house knows that one of the two girls is not really my
daughter. Pray stop me, if you find me wandering from the point. My wish
is to show that you are the only man I can open my heart to. She--"
He paused, as if in search of a lost idea, and left the sentence
uncompleted. "Yes," he went on, "I was thinking of my adopted child. Did
I ever tell you that I baptized her myself? and by a good Scripture name
too--Eunice. Ah, sir, that little helpless baby is a grown-up girl now;
of an age to inspire love, and to feel love. I blush to acknowledge
it; I have behaved with a want of self-control, with a cowardly
weakness.--No! I am, indeed, wandering this time. I ought to have told
you first that I have been brought face to face with the possibility of
Eunice's marriage. And, to make it worse still, I can't help liking
the young man. He comes of a good family--exc