s thing, which would make her life a burden to
her,--how good it would be for her to die! She did not fear to die,
and she feared nothing after death;--but with a coward's dread she
did fear the torment of her failure if this girl should become the
wife of Daniel Thwaite. In such case most certainly would she never
see the girl again,--and life then would be all a blank to her. But
she understood that though she should separate herself from the world
altogether, men would know of her failure, and would know that she
was devouring her own heart in the depth of her misery. If the girl
would but have done as her mother had proposed, would have followed
after her kind, and taken herself to those pleasant paths which had
been opened for her, with what a fond caressing worship, with what
infinite kisses and blessings, would she, the mother, have tended
the young Countess and assisted in making the world bright for the
high-born bride. But a tailor! Foh! What a degraded creature was her
child to cling to so base a love!

She did, however, acknowledge to herself that the girl's clinging was
of a kind she had no power to lessen. The ivy to its standard tree
is not more loyal than was her daughter to this wretched man. But
the girl might die,--or the tailor might die,--or she, the miserable
mother, might die; and so this misery might be at an end. Nothing
but death could end it. Thoughts and dreams of other violence had
crossed her brain,--of carrying the girl away, of secluding her, of
frightening her from day to day into some childish, half-idiotic
submission. But for that the tame obedience of the girl would have
been necessary,--or that external assistance which she had sought,
in vain, to obtain among the lawyers. Such hopes were now gone, and
nothing remained but death.

Why had not the girl gone when she was so like to go? Why had she not
died when it had seemed to be God's pleasure to take her? A little
indifference, some slight absence of careful tending, any chance
accident would have made that natural which was now,--which was
now so desirable and yet beyond reach! Yes;--so desirable! For
whose sake could it be wished that a life so degraded should be
prolonged? But there could be no such escape. With her eyes fixed on
vacancy, revolving it in her mind, she thought that she could kill
herself;--but she knew that she could not kill her child.

But, should she destroy herself, there would be no vengeance in that.
Cou