ppointed as
you can be! It was the desire of my life that you and Odalite should
marry, and in time succeed us here, and make the two great manors of
Mondreer and Greenbushes into one mammoth estate. I am disappointed in
this. And if I ever permitted myself to grieve over the inevitable, I
should feel very sorry for myself as well as for you!"

"It was so sudden, so unexpected! Why, her last letter to me, received at
Spezzia, and written not two months ago, was so kind! She must have
changed very quickly," said poor Le.

"No, I think it must have been gradually. I think she was deeply
infatuated before she realized her state. And then I know she struggled,
poor, dear child!--struggled until she nearly broke her heart--to keep
faithful to you and to please me. It was only from her suitor that I heard
at last of her distress. Then, as she meekly left her fate entirely in my
hands, I conquered my own ambition and told the child to follow the
dictates of her own heart. What else could a father do? But even now,
though she has her own way in this matter, she is not content! She frets
about you, Le!"

"Oh! and this is the gentle, tender creature whom I could reproach so
fiercely--dog that I was!" said Le, who seemed to feel the necessity of
confession to poor Odalite's parents.

"You, Le?"

"Yes, I! When she made me understand that she had broken her engagement
with me and had promised to marry that Englishman, I tell you, Uncle Abel,
I went on at her like a raving maniac! Satan took possession of me!
I--could bang out my own brains against the wall, when I think of it!"

"Don't! It would spoil the paper, and do nobody any good but the coroner
and the undertaker! It was inevitable that you should have gone into a
passion, Le! Your provocation would have upset a doctor of divinity, if it
had taken him by surprise. Think no more of it, my boy! I dare say she has
forgiven it!"

"She! the blessed child! She never once resented it--that is what kills
me! She never opened her lips in self-defense, or self-excuse! Oh, I could
beat my----"

"Pray, don't, I say! It would make a mess in a tidy parlor! I dare say she
thought she was without any excuse for disappointing you and me of our pet
plan, and all for the sake of that puncheon of an Englishman! But girls
are weak vessels. I never knew one worth having, except my own noble wife!
But perhaps she has spoiled me for appreciating any other woman, even my
own daughter."

"Y