ds. This circumstance, at least, you know already.'

'Not I,' said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon
the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. 'Not I.'

'Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never
forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,' returned Mr.
Brownlow. 'I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than
eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty--for he was, I
repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry. Must I go back
to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will
you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?'

'I have nothing to disclose,' rejoined Monks. 'You must talk on if you
will.'

'These new friends, then,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'were a naval officer
retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year
before, and left him with two children--there had been more, but, of
all their family, happily but two survived. They were both daughters;
one a beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two
or three years old.'

'What's this to me?' asked Monks.

'They resided,' said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the
interruption, 'in a part of the country to which your father in his
wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode.
Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. Your
father was gifted as few men are. He had his sister's soul and person.
As the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him. I
would that it had ended there. His daughter did the same.'

The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes
fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed:

'The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that
daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a
guileless girl.'

'Your tale is of the longest,' observed Monks, moving restlessly in his
chair.

'It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,' returned
Mr. Brownlow, 'and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed
joy and happiness, it would be very brief. At length one of those rich
relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had
been sacrificed, as others are often--it is no uncommon case--died, and
to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him
his panacea for all griefs--Money. It was necessary that he s