"It is most reluctantly that I refuse to comply with any requisition of yours," said Zorilda; "but I am determined not to sign that paper. Possessing no rights, making no demand, I will not assume the merit of renouncing that to which I do not assert a title. Were I bound by an engagement such as terrifies you to anticipate, I should be unworthy of the choice, undeserving of the affection with which I could basely trifle, and of which I could thus make a cruel, cold, and heartless surrender----" "Quit my presence this instant, artful and unnatural girl," retorted Mrs. Hartland: "If you are resolved not to comply with my reasonable desire, I am equally so, that you shall not reap any harvest from your obstinacy and disobedience. Quit me, I say, this moment, and do not presume to leave your apartment. I give you one week to consider of your conduct; if at the end of that time you repent of your behaviour to me, and declare yourself ready to submit, all shall be forgotten; but if you persevere in your present shameful resistance to my will and pleasure, prepare to depart. I shall take measures in the interim for your removal, and shall not consult your convenience as to the time or manner of it." Zorilda withdrew, and having gained her prison-chamber, laid her aching head upon the pillow, revolving in her mind this crisis of her present circumstances. The cup of sorrow seemed now filled to the brim; one drop more, and it would overflow; and death, the last friend of despair, would come, she thought, to her aid, and terminate her trials. It was not the rigorous treatment which she had just experienced--it was not confinement--that she deplored; on the contrary, solitude and repose were as soothing as they were become necessary to her harassed spirits; but the gentle, the affectionate Zorilda, had never till now rebelled against the authority of her whom she still reflected on as her benefactress; and she reproached herself with having inflicted pain. Unaccustomed to resist, she wondered how she could have denied a request of Mrs. Hartland's. Yet to yield was as repugnant to every sentiment of love and delicacy as to every principle of truth and honour. Here, then, was the final dissolution of all her airy dreams. Here was the extinguishment of hope, the end of wishes, the last blow to expectation. "How merciful the 'blindness kindly given' which prevents us penetrating the dark veil of future events!" exclaimed the meek sufferer; "but the time is come. How little did I imagine it so close at hand when the friendship of my beloved Mrs. Gordon is to be tried! _Her_ friendship will not fail me in the hour of need!"