announced, I was
prepared to see my child."

"It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed."

"You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell
what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that
elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never
tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me."

"Why? Were you disappointed?"

"What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were
like, I could have dropped."

"Mamma, why?"

"I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall
never know me."

"But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the
thought of an introduction to strangers--that was all."

"I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured
me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content."

"You puzzle me."

"I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to
shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability
had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant--a
toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before
her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels.
I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without
reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a
transfiguration on the domestic hearth--to see the white mask lifted,
the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down---- O God, I
_have_ suffered!"

She sank on the pillow.

"I _have_ suffered! None saw--none knew. There was no sympathy, no
redemption, no redress!"

"Take comfort, mother. It is over now."

"It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His
patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with
terror--I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through
to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has
cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But,
Caroline----"

Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.

"Mother!"

"I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect
the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred
his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All
_you_ derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave,
between him and me, the settlement