Alice ran breathlessly through this string of arguments, while I listened with a disturbed and a rebellious heart. No, if this was true,--if my father was slowly dying--if he would soon be beyond the reach of all obedience and duty, I would not deny him anything--not even this. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to think of it. I could not see why he should ask such a bitter sacrifice from me. I knew of no self-sacrifice in his history--why should he think it was easy in mine? Alice left me like a skilful general, when she had made this urgent appeal, and went away down stairs, saying she would call me when my father awoke. I remained at my window, where I had been dreaming before, but what a harsh interruption had come to my dreams--the sunshine without streamed down as full and bright as ever over the trees and flowers, and fresh enclosing greensward of our pretty garden; half an hour of time had come and gone, but it might have been half a year for the change it made in me. Alice had come to my Bower of Bliss, like Sir Guyon, and driven me forth from among the flowers and odors of the enchanted land. My heart became very heavy, I could not tell why. I resolved upon making my submission to my father, if I had an opportunity, and telling him to do what he would with me. This was not a willing or tender submission, but a forced and reluctant one; and I did not try to conceal from myself that I felt it very hard, though when I thought again of his recent suffering, and of the fantastic paradise of dreams in which I was wandering, while he wrestled with his mortal enemy, I felt suddenly humiliated and subdued. My father! my father! I had belonged to him all my life, I had no right to any love but his; I had lived at ease in his care, and trusted to him with the perfect confidence of a child. But now, when it was at last of importance that I should trust him, was this the time to follow my own fancies and leave him to suffer alone?