“Nettie! Nettie! I am strong; but your loss would paralyze me. But oh! it cannot be. I will never, never leave you nor forsake you. If I do, may God abandon my own soul!” Her features were convulsed again, and for a moment she concealed them with her hands; then laying her hands tenderly upon the head of her kneeling companion, she said: “It does not matter much for me, for I think that death is upon me—but for you, Hugh—oh, it is hard, it is hard for you. It is hard for you, so good and true, so noble as you are, to be so grievously wronged by disappointment. Oh! it shakes one’s faith in goodness, in Heaven. But I love you so—I love you so that I will pray God, living or dying, I will pray God to give you another love, another wife, who shall be worthy of you.” “By Heaven! I will have no other wife but you. And you will I have!” exclaimed Hugh Hutton, forgetting the presence of others, and speaking so loud as to startle Mrs. Garnet, who came forward and said: “Oh, Hugh! my dear friend, is not this a trouble? What shall we do to persuade her?” “Dear friend, leave me alone with her for a little while. God has deputed to me some power over His self-willed child—this noble but stubborn girl. Leave me with her.” Mrs. Garnet turned to go, but was met near the door by Miss Joe, who bustled in, and, nudging the lady’s elbow, whispered to her, saying: “I say! aint it time for them all to walk down? The parson—Parson Sinclair—has been come for half an hour, and the company downstairs is getting out o’ patience. Besides, if the ceremony don’t make haste and get performed, the breakfast will get spoiled—the coffee will boil all its strength away, and the batter for the rice waffles will rise so much it will turn sour. What are they all waiting for?” “Nothing. And I do not know that there will be any marriage,” replied Mrs. Garnet sternly and bitterly. “Hugh, what is the matter?” exclaimed Miss Joe, looking around in surprise. Then, perceiving the recumbent form of Miss Seabright, with Dr. Hutton still kneeling by her, she inquired: “Dear me! What ails Garnet?” “You have ruined her peace forever,” indignantly exclaimed Mrs. Garnet, unable to forbear reproaches. “You have killed her with your uncalled-for revelations.” “Me! ruined what? killed which?” exclaimed the innocent old lady, in perplexity. “Garnet Seabright. I say you have killed her.” “Killed her! why I haint even tetched her. I haint done a thing to her; I haint harmed a hair of her head. I haint been a-nigh her. She was well enough when I come through here with the napkins.” “Words kill! You told her the secret of her birth. You told her she was General Garnet’s child, and the shock and the shame have overwhelmed, have killed her.” The old lady listened with her eyes starting out of her head, and her mouth wide open with unmeasured astonishment, and then exclaimed: “Me! Me tell her she was General Garnet’s child! Why, I didn’t do no such thing! Who says I did?”