"But you, father," added Madeline, tearing herself from the neck of her weeping sister, and sinking on her knees before Lester, who leaned against the wall convulsed with his emotions, and covering his face with his hands--"but you,--what can I say to you?--You, who have never,--no, not in my first childhood, said one harsh word to me--who have sunk all a father's authority in a father's love,--how can I say all that I feel for you?--the grateful overflowing, (paining, yet--oh, how sweet!) remembrances which crowd around and suffocate me now?--The time will come when Ellinor and Ellinor's children must be all in all to you--when of your poor Madeline nothing will be left but a memory; but they, they will watch on you and tend you, and protect your grey hairs from sorrow, as I might once have hoped I also was fated to do." "My child! my child! you break my heart!" faltered forth at last the poor old man, who till now had in vain endeavoured to speak. "Give me your blessing, dear father," said Madeline, herself overcome by her feelings;--"Put your hand on my head and bless me--and say, that if I have ever unconsciously given you a moment's pain--I am forgiven!" "Forgiven!" repeated Lester, raising his daughter with weak and trembling arms as his tears fell fast upon her cheek,--"Never did I feel what an angel had sate beside my hearth till now!--But be comforted--be cheered. What, if Heaven had reserved its crowning mercy till this day, and Eugene be amongst us, free, acquitted, triumphant before the night!" "Ha!" said Madeline, as if suddenly roused by the thought into new life:- -"Ha! let us hasten to find your words true. Yes! yes!--if it should be so--if it should. And," added she, in a hollow voice, (the enthusiasm checked,) "if it were not for my dreams, I might believe it would be so:- -But--come--I am ready now!"