distrust his sex! Man's love to woman is as evanescent
as is the presence of the summer-morning mist, that, for an hour
or so, hugs lovingly the lea, then vanishes for ever. What are his
vows but vapour? Poor, rash girl, why, without warning me, have
you opened the horn-book of love, and spelled at such a speed,
that, in a day's time, you have read as far as warier maids dare
con in years?" And Amanda looked both abashed and amazed; but at
length enquired in wonder:

"What may you mean by these strange utterances? Nay, nay, dear
Mona: you slander your own father by this language."

"Thou canst not say, child, that I slander thine," responded Mona,
tartly; and her countenance darkened with an equivocal expression
new to Amanda, who, catching at the inuendo, earnestly demanded,

"Who was my father? tell me, for you know; I myself know, I feel,
(and not untrustworthy is this intuition) that I am not here a mere
fortuitous foundling. Who was my mother? I charge you to inform
me."

"Girl, had not man been false, you had not needed to have so often
asked of me that question," Mona replied with a cynical expression,
and hoarse, sepulchral voice, that, whilst it seemed to vindicate
herself, reproved her fellow, on whose face an air of horror now
mantled, as she excitedly exclaimed:

"Say more, or else unsay what you have already uttered. What must
be understood from this alarming language? Although there hangs a
mystery over my birth, surely there rests upon it no dishonor.
Acquaint me, then, once more I charge you, and now by the love and
kindness that you have always shewn to me, declare, for you know--I
say I feel you know; whose child am I, where was I born, how have
I been committed to your care, adopted, cherished; I, who have no
filial claims upon you; adjudged to be an orphan, perhaps the child
of charity; how have I been divided between you and my guardian,
or held as if I were your mutual bond? Inform me, Mona, my good
Mona, foster-mother, nurse, you who have been to me as a true mother
might be, say whose I am; whether, and where, my parents live; and,
if they live, why they have thus abandoned me," and she burst into
a flood of tears.

"Quiet yourself, my fond one," answered Mona, moved also to tears
by this appeal; "your birth on one side is as high as any that this
country boasts, therefore is as high as Claude Montigny's. Your
mother is descended from a warlike Scottish line, your father's
father was an