"Resume your calmness, child: your earnestness on this subject afflicts me; it has a fearful omen in it. It tells of a heart fatally devoted to one whom, of all men, I have greatest reason to hate. This unhappy, lingering passion for the sworn enemy of his king and country, little becomes my daughter, or her regard for me. It may rouse me, Mildred, to some unkind wish against thee. Oh, I could curse myself that I ever threw you in the way of this insidious rebel, Butler. Nay you need not conceal your tears; well do they deserve to flow for this persevering transgression against the peace of your father's house. It requires but little skill to read the whole history of your heart." Lindsay now walked to and fro across the apartment, under the influence of emotions which he was afraid to trust himself to utter. At length resuming his expostulation, in a somewhat moderate tone, he continued: "Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory? Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head? I do not speak of my own suffering. Will you for ever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again? Whom if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment, the halter may reward, or, in his most fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty, and shame pursue. Are you for ever to love that man?" Mildred stood before her father as he brought this appeal to a close; her eyes filled with tears, her breast heaving as if it would burst; and summoning up all her courage for her reply, when this last question was asked, she looked with an expression of almost angry defiance in his face, as she answered "For ever, for ever," and hastily left the room.