y that the young have only one path to happiness. You grieve
that I cannot consent to Lionel's marriage with your Sophy. Dismiss from
your mind the desire for the Impossible. Gently wean from hers what is
but a girl's first fancy."

"It is a girl's first love."

"And if it be," said Darrell, calmly, "no complaint more sure to yield
to change of air. I have known a girl as affectionate, as pure, as full
of all womanly virtues, as your Sophy (and I can give her no higher
praise)--loved more deeply than Lionel can love; professing, doubtless
at the time believing, that she also loved for life; betrothed too;
faith solemnised by promise; yet in less than a year she was another's
wife. Change of air, change of heart! I do not underrate the effect
which a young man, so winning as Lionel, would naturally produce on the
fancy or the feelings of a girl, who as yet, too, has seen no others;
but impressions in youth are characters in the sand. Grave them ever
so deeply, the tide rolls over them; and when the ebb shows the surface
again, the characters are gone, for the sands are shifted. Courage! Lady
Montfort will present to her others with forms as fair as Lionel's, and
as elegantly dressed. With so much in her own favour, there are young
patricians enough who will care not a rush what her birth;--young
lords--Lady Montfort knows well how fascinating young lords can be!
Courage! before a year is out, you will find new characters written on
the sand."

"You don't know Sophy, sir," said Waife, simply; "and I see you are
resolved not to know her. But you say Arabella Crane is to inquire;
and should the inquiry prove that she is no child of Gabrielle
Desmarets--that she is either your own grandchild or not mine--that--"

"Let me interrupt you. If there be a thing in the world that is cruel
and treacherous, it is a false hope! Crush out of every longing thought
the belief that this poor girl can prove to be one whom, with my
consent, my kinsman can woo to be his wife. Lionel Haughton is the sole
kinsman left to whom I can bequeath this roof-tree--these acres hallowed
to me because associated with my earliest lessons in honour and with the
dreams which directed my life. He must take with the heritage the name
it represents. In his children, that name of Darrell can alone live
still in the land. I say to you, that even were my daughter now in
existence, she would not succeed me--she would not inherit nor
transmit that name. Why?--n