rother, Ralph!"

Lina started as if some new pang had struck her, and then drew away her
hands with a gesture of passionate grief.

"Ralph, my own brother, and older than I am, for he is older--oh, this
is terrible."

"You will see," said General Harrington, speaking in a composed voice,
that seemed like a mockery of her passionate accents--"you will see by
this how necessary it is that what I have told you should be kept secret
from my wife and child. Your peculiar relations with my son rendered it
imperative. I have intrusted you with a secret of terrible importance.
You can imagine what the consequences would be, were your relationship
to myself made known."

"I will not tell. Oh! thank God, I need not tell!" cried Lina wildly;
"but then, Ralph?--what will he think--how will he act? Ralph, Ralph--my
brother! Oh, if I had but died on the threshold of this room!"

"Be comforted," said the General, in his usual bland voice, for the
scene had begun to weary him. "You will soon get used to the new
position of things."

"But who will explain to Ralph? What can I say? how can I act? He will
not know."

"Ralph is a very young man. He will go into the world, and see more of
society. This is his first fancy--I will take care that he is more
occupied. The world is full of beautiful women."

Lina turned deadly pale. The cruel speech struck her to the soul.

The old man saw it, but worldly philosophy made him ruthless. "I will
crush the boy out of her heart," he said, inly, "to be rude here is to
be merciful."

"You must forget Ralph," he said, and his voice partook of the hardness
of his thoughts.

"I cannot forget," answered the girl, with a faint moan, "but I will
strive to remember that--that he is my brother!"

The last words came to her lips almost in a cry. She shuddered all over,
and the name of brother broke from her with a pang, as if her
heart-strings snapped with the utterance.

"Can I go away?" she said, at last, creeping like a wounded fawn slowly
to the door.

"Not yet," answered the old man. "You must first comprehend the great
necessity there is for composure and silence. Not a word of this must be
breathed under my roof now or ever. My own tranquillity and that of Mrs.
Harrington are at stake, to say nothing of your own. I have told you a
momentous secret. Let it be sacred."

"Oh! the terrible burden of this secret! Must I carry it for ever? Even
now I go out from your presence like a guilty