She spoke with a generous animation, while yet her eyes glistened, and her voice trembled with emotion. Lady Cecil was moved, while she deplored; she caressed her; she praised, while Mrs. Raby said, "It is impossible not to honour your intentions, which spring from so pure and noble a source. I think, indeed, that you overrate your obligations to Mr. Falkner. Had he restored you to us after your mother's death, you would have found, I trust, a happy home with me. He adopted you, because it best pleased him so to do. He disregarded the evil he brought upon us by so doing; and only restored you to us when the consequence of his crimes prevented him from being any longer a protection." "Pardon me," said Elizabeth, "if I interrupt you. Mr. Falkner is a suffering, he believed himself to be a dying, man; he lived in anguish till he could declare his error, to clear the name of his unhappy victim; he wished first to secure my future lot, before he dared fate for himself; chance altered his designs; such were his motives, generous towards me as they ever were." "And you, dear Elizabeth," said Lady Cecil, "must act in obedience to them and to his wishes. He anticipated disgrace from his disclosures--a disgrace which you must not share. You speak like a romantic girl of serving him in prison. You cannot guess what a modern jail is, its vulgar and shocking inhabitants: the hideous language and squalid sights are such that their very existence should be a secret to the innocent: be assured that Mr. Falkner, if he be, as I believe him, a man of honour and delicacy, will shudder at the very thought of your approaching such contamination; he will be best pleased to know you safe and happy with your family." "What a picture do you draw!" cried Elizabeth, trying to suppress her tears; "my poor, poor father, whose life hangs by a thread! how can he survive the accumulation of evil? But he will forget all these horrors when I am with him. I know, thank God, I do indeed know, that I have power to cheer and support him, even at the worst." "This is madness!" observed Lady Cecil, in a tone of distress. Mrs. Raby interposed with her suggestions. She spoke of her own desire, the desire of all the family, to welcome Elizabeth; she told her that with them, belonging to them, she had new duties; her obedience was due to her relatives; she must not act so as to injure them. She alluded to their oppressed religion; to the malicious joy their enemies would have in divulging such a tale as that would be, if their niece's conduct made the whole course of events public. And, as well as she could, she intimated that if she mixed up her name in a tale so full of horror and guilt, her father's family could never after receive her.