On which she said--"Then, sir, forgive me,
since you force me to it, if I speak before Mr. Rymer and these men what
I would for ever have kept a secret if I could. One of your family is my
child's father."

"Any of my servants?" cried the dean.

"No."

"My nephew?"

"No; one who is nearer still."

"Come this way," said the dean; "I _will_ speak to you in private."

It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of
pretended justice--he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not
inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all
particulars of refined or coarse treatment he would alleviate or
aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that
a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while
Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for
herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was
a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she
boldly said, "a part of _his_ family, very near to him, was concerned in
her tale."

The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was--a charge
from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, "to hush the affair up," and
his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and
that "she should have no more trouble with it."

"I have no trouble with it," replied Agnes: "my child is now all my
comfort, and I cannot part from it."

"Why, you inconsistent woman, did you not attempt to murder it?"

"That was before I had nursed it."

"'Tis necessary you should give it up: it must be sent some miles away;
and then the whole circumstance will be soon forgotten."

"_I_ shall never forget it."

"No matter; you must give up the child. Do not some of our first women
of quality part with their children?"

"Women of quality have other things to love--I have nothing else."

"And would you occasion my son and his new-made bride the shame and the
uneasiness--"

Here Agnes burst into a flood of tears; and being angrily asked by the
dean "why she blubbered so--"

"_I_ have had shame and uneasiness," she replied, wringing her hands.

"And you deserve them: they are the sure attendants of crimes such as
yours. If you allured and entrapped a young man like my son--"

"I am the youngest by five years," said Agnes.

"Well, well, repent," returned the dean; "repent, and resign your child.
Repent, and you ma