“What! that beggarly painter, Mervin! And is it for him you have slighted the highest in station—the brightest in intellect! For two years you have carried on this deception unsuspected—I have but one atonement to demand for such duplicity. Accept Herbert, and it shall be forgotten—refuse, and you are no longer a child of mine.” Vain were the pleadings of the unhappy girl—vain her appeals to his better feelings. Glad of a pretext to treat her with such harshness as to drive her into his measures, Mr. Selwyn availed himself to the utmost of the one which was offered. She was literally left no choice between a marriage she detested, or expulsion from the paternal roof. It is doubtful whether the parents would have carried their resentment so far, had she finally refused compliance with their wishes; but there was so much at stake, that both father and mother scrupled not to use every endeavor to urge her into the proposed union. The constitution of Julia had never been robust; and the conflict in her feelings brought on a severe attack of illness, from which she very slowly recovered; and there was a brightness in the large-pupiled eyes, and a clear spot of rose upon her cheek, which seemed to speak of early decay and death. She went out once more, and listened with apparent acquiescence to the wishes of her parents in regard to her marriage. Herbert was roused into something like interest, and his attentions were unremitting. Julia received them passively—she felt herself a victim to a fate she had no power to control, and yielded to the will of those around her. Yet she could not write to Mervin; she could not tell him who trusted her that she was about to wed another. No words could convey to him the wearing persecutions of which she had been the victim, even could a daughter bring herself to write such things of her parents. Her energies were destroyed, and she felt herself borne forward on the current of events, without the power to avert the doom they had awarded her. As the fall advanced, a slight cough alarmed her mother, and again the physician was summoned. Julia earnestly desired to see him alone. He found her in her room with a small parcel on the table before her. “Doctor,” she said, with a faint smile, “you are called on to restore health to the hopeless. You know that to be an impossible task. I wish you to tell me honestly and truly, how long you think I can live.” “Pooh! Miss Julia! you are too young to talk of dying. Many long and happy years are, I trust, before you.” “You would flatter me with a hope that is not dear to me. Long life I now ask not—desire not. I ask you as a man of honor—as a Christian—if you think it possible for me to recover? To die is now my only wish.”