ou could give no higher proof of your confidence in Lady
Hester's goodness and worth, than in committing to her charge all that
we hold so dear. I spoke of our gratitude" her voice faltered here, and
she hesitated a second or so; our gratitude! strange word to express the
feeling with which we part from what we cling to so fondly! "and I asked
of her to be the mother of her who had none!"

"Oh, Nelly, I cannot go I cannot leave you!" burst out Kate, as she
knelt down, and buried her head in her sister's lap. "I feel already how
weak and how unable I am to live among strangers, away from you and dear
papa. I have need of you both!"

"May I never leave this spot if you're not enough to drive me mad!"
exclaimed Dalton. "You cried two nights and a day because there was
opposition to your going. You fretted till your eyes were red, and your
cheeks all furrowed with tears; and now that you get leave to go
now that I consent to to to sacrifice ay, to sacrifice my domestic
enjoyments to your benefit you turn short round and say you won't go!"

"Nay, nay, papa," said Nelly, mildly; "Kate but owns with what fears
she would consent to leave us, and in this shows a more fitting mind to
brave what may come, than if she went forth with a heart brimful of its
bright anticipations, and only occupied with a future of splendor and
enjoyment."

"I ask you again, is it into the backwoods of Newfoundland is it into
the deserts of Arabia she is going?" said Dalton, ironically.

"The country before her has perils to the full as great, if not greater
than either," rejoined Nelly, lowly.

"There's a ring at the bell," said Dalton, perhaps not sorry to cut
short a discussion in which his own doubts and fears were often at
variance with his words; for while opposing Nelly with all his might,
he was frequently forced to coincide secretly with that he so stoutly
resisted. Vanity alone rose above every other motive, and even hardened
his heart against separation and absence from his favorite child, vanity
to think that his daughter would be the admired beauty in the salons of
the great and highly born; that she would be daily moving in a rank the
most exalted; that his dear Kate would be the attraction of courts,
the centre of adulation wherever she went. So blinded was he by false
reasoning, that he actually fancied himself a martyr to his daughter's
future advancement, and that this inveterate egotism was a high and holy
self-denial! "My wor