"And why did you not hasten to your poor wife, cousin Jack," Eve innocently demanded, "as soon as you returned to the settlements?" "Alas! my-dear girl, I found letters at St. Louis announcing her death. Nothing was said of any child, nor did I in the least suspect that I was about to become a father. When Mildred died, I thought all the ties, all the obligations, all the traces of my ill-judged marriage were extinct; and the course taken by her relations, of whom, in this country, there remained very few, left me no inclination to proclaim it. By observing silence, I continued to pass as a bachelor, of course; though had there been any apparent reason for avowing what had occurred, I think no one who knows me, can suppose I would have shrunk from doing so." "May I inquire, my dear sir," Paul asked, with a timidity of manner that betrayed how tenderly he felt it necessary to touch on the subject at all--"may I inquire, my dear sir, what course was taken by my mother's relatives?" "I never knew Mr. Warrender, my wife's brother, but he had the reputation of being a haughty and exacting man. His letters were not friendly; scarcely tolerable; for he affected to believe I had given a false address at the west, when I was residing in the middle states, and he threw out hints that to me were then inexplicable, but which the letters left with me, by Paul, have sufficiently explained. I thought him cruel and unfeeling at the time, but he had an excuse for his conduct." "Which was, sir--?" Paul eagerly inquired. "I perceive by the letters you have given me, my son, that your mother's family had imbibed the opinion, that I was John Assheton, of Lancaster, a man of singular humours, who had made an unfortunate marriage in Spain, and whose wife, I believe, is still living in Paris, though lost to herself and her friends. My kinsman lived retired, and never recovered the blow. As he was one of the only persons of the name, who could have married your mother, her relatives appear to have taken up the idea that he had been guilty of bigamy, and of course that Paul was illegitimate. Mr. Warrender, by his letters, appears even to have had an interview with this person, and, on mentioning his wife, was rudely repulsed from the house. It was a proud family, and Mildred being dead, the concealment of the birth of her child was resorted to, as a means of averting a fancied disgrace. As for myself, I call the all-seeing eye of God to witness, that the thought of my being a parent never crossed my mind, until I learned that a John Assheton was the father of Paul, and that the miniature of Mildred Warrender, that I received at the period of our engagement, was the likeness of his mother. The simple declaration of Captain Ducie concerning the family name of his mother, removed all doubt." "But, cousin Jack, did not the mention of Lady Dunluce, of the Ducies, and of Paul's connections, excite curiosity?"