only end with my
life.

"Alice, I read not long since of a son, the veriest wretch on earth; he was
unwilling to grant his poor aged father a subsistence from his abundance;
he embittered the failing years of his life by unkindness and reproaches.
One day, after an altercation between them, the son seized his father by
his thin, white hair, and dragged him to the corner of the street. Here,
the father in trembling tones implored his pity. 'Stop, oh! stop, my son'
he said, 'for I dragged my father here, God has punished me in your sin.'

"Alice, can you not see the hand of a just God in this retribution, and do
you wonder, when you made this acknowledgment to me to-night, the agony of
death overcame me? I thought, as I felt His hand laid heavily upon me, my
punishment was greater than I could bear; my sin would be punished in your
sorrow; and naught but sorrow would be your portion as the wife of Walter
Lee.

"Do not interrupt me, it is time we were asleep, but I shall soon have
finished what I have to say. My father and Mr. Weston were friends in early
life, and I was thrown into frequent companionship with my husband, from
the time when we were very young. His appearance, his talents, his
unvaried gayety of disposition won my regard. For a time, the excess of
dissipation in which he indulged was unknown to us, but on our return to
Virginia after an absence of some months in England, it could no longer be
concealed. His own father joined with mine in prohibiting all intercourse
between us. For a time his family considered him as lost to them and to
himself; he was utterly regardless of aught save what contributed to his
own pleasures. I only mention this to excuse my father in your eyes, should
you conclude he was too harsh in the course he insisted I should pursue. He
forbade him the house, and refused to allow any correspondence between us;
at the same time he promised that if he would perfectly reform from the
life he was leading, at the end of two years he would permit the marriage.
I promised in return to bind myself to these conditions. Will you believe
it, that seated on my mother's grave, with my head upon my kind father's
breast, I vowed, that as I hoped for Heaven I would never break my promise,
never see him again, without my father's permission, until the expiration
of this period; and yet I did break it. I have nearly done. I left home
secretly. I was married; and I never saw my father's face again. The s