He ceased abruptly, and returned to his book with a stern face. This was enough for me; all my questionings disappeared at once, in the greatness of my sympathy for my father. I thought again upon Edgar Southcote, and upon his "generous impulse." I unconsciously associated myself with my father, and took his place, and tried to fancy the intolerable misery with which I should feel the substitution of pity and generosity in my own case, for that unknown love, that wonderful visionary influence which was in my favorite stories, and in my girlish dreams--and my heart returned to its former confidence in my father, and passionate feeling of his great wrong. His life _had_ been blighted--who could deny it! he who was so well worthy of the loftiest affection, he had found nothing better than pity in its place. It is not my wish to trace all we did hour by hour in our solitary house, or I might record many a day like this. This was not a day of very vital moment in my life--but it was one which confirmed into singular strength and obstinacy, the influences which have guided and led me through many a more momentous day. THE FIFTH DAY. All this day, with a degree of expectation and excitement, of which I felt somewhat ashamed, I had been preparing for a party to which, at the instance of Mr. Osborne, I was to go in the evening. It was a ridiculous thing for a girl of nineteen--that was my age now--to think so much of a party which was by no means a great party, nor had anything remarkable about it; but, though I was so old, I had never been out anywhere before, and much as I denied it to myself, this was really an event for me. Our days were all so like each other, of such a uniform color and complexion, that it was something to be roused even to anxiety for a becoming dress. We were not precisely poor--this old house in which we lived was my father's property, and though I did not know what was the amount of the income which he inherited, along with this house, from his mother, I knew it was enough to maintain us in comfort, and that nothing in the household was ever straitened. But, I had never gone out in the evening before, and I did not very well know what to wear. Alice and I had a great many consultations on the subject. For my own part, I thought white muslin was only suitable for _girls_, and very young people, and at nineteen I no longer thought myself very young; and I had no patience for the pink and blue in which dolls were dressed as well as young ladies--it was very hard to please me--and the question remained still undecided, even to the afternoon of this very day--