Sorrow had breathed a blight over the once happy circle; and the sweet harmonies of family intercourse, if looked for in outward evidences, were visible no more. When they spoke at all, the father and daughter spoke in monosyllables; and Don Felix, though really no way disturbed, did little else but sigh. But what most distressed Evaline was, not the silence, but the seeming prostration of her father. Nor was it in his face, dejected as it was, or in the tones of his voice, that she conceived this to be apparent. It was in his excessive tenderness to her that she saw his affliction. He seemed to be afraid to speak, or even to move, without first looking at her, as if he imagined it possible that his words or motion might give her uneasiness. In short, he appeared to be so subdued, that he had resigned all care for himself, and had no thought that was not entirely hers. She hoped this would wear off, and that a day or two, at furthest, would bring him more fortitude. But the habit rather grew upon him; and day followed day, in tedious succession, and with the same melancholy monotony, without altering his manner in the least. His evident wretchedness materially aggravated the depression of Evaline. Though her own cause of sorrow, contrary to her expectations, was none the less bitter or poignant from being familiar, it did become less absorbing, and gradually left her open to other and more tender impressions. In the severance of one tie, she felt those that remained, and which embraced her earlier affections, drawn yet closer, and her surviving attachments become more enlarged and endearing. To her father, in particular, her heart opened new and more devoted sympathies. He was now to be her sole care--in him was rooted her only remaining hope; and to soothe the downhill of his life, which her sorrows had rendered rugged, was to be her one solitary aim.