"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my Gabriella?" "It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it comes before us in the person of a father!" "No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this _real_ trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark imaginings." I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale. Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,--the blossoming of flowers,--the warbling of birds,--the music of waters,--and all the beauty, life, and glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells, the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall. I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs. Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory there.