"To a lady, father!" cried Charley fiercely now, as he stood facing Sir Philip. "You told me you wished me to marry. Can I govern my own heart? I told you once that I did not believe so good and pure a woman as my dear mother lived on this earth. I retract it now, and own, father, that it was said in the blind ignorance of my foolish conceit; for I know now that there are women walking this lower earth of ours whom I cruelly calumniated, for they might be taken as the types of the angels above. Father, I love one of these women with a strong man's first fierce love--with the passion long chained, now almost at your bidding let loose, and before heaven I swear that--" "For heaven's sake be silent, Charley, my dear child!" cried Sir Philip almost frantically, as he laid his hand on his son's lips. Then with a groan he shrank away, staggered to his chair, and buried his face in his hands, while with face working, brow flushed, and the veins standing out in his forehead, Charley stood struggling between the two loves, when he turned; for the door opened, and the servant handed to him a letter that made his face flush a deeper hue. Volume 2, Chapter II. NELLY A CORRESPONDENT. Charley Vining took the letter with trembling hand from the silver salver upon which it lay, glancing the while at the superscription, written in an awkward scrawly character, as if the sender had been possessed of a wild unbroken colt of a pen, which would shy and buck and dart about as it should not; but as well as if some one had been present to whisper to him that that letter contained trouble, its recipient knew it, and hesitated to tear open the envelope. He gazed at the address once more, then at the bent figure of his father, and took a step forward to speak--but no, he could not. He felt half unmanned, and that his words would be choked in their utterance; and turning hastily round, he hurried from the room, his last glance showing him Sir Philip with his face still covered by his hands; and Charley's heart smote him as he thought of the pain he had inflicted upon that noble heart. Unintentionally, upon hurrying out of the house, Charley made his way to the part of the grounds where stood the rose-tree from which he had plucked that blossom--the spot where he had told his love, believing that it fell only upon the ears he wished, but all the same in the presence of three witnesses--the false and the true. But the roses were gone--only a few brown withered petals yet clung to the branches; and recalling how Ella had fled from him, he once more threw himself into the garden seat, and with an effort tore open the letter. And then he could not read it; for the characters swam before his eyes, till savagely calling himself "girl!" "Idiot!" and setting his teeth firmly upon his nether lip, he read as follows: