‘A tear,’ she observed, in gentle accents. ‘Did I not hear our Clara’s name too? Did not your lips utter the name of our child?’ ‘No, no,’ he replied, hastily rising; ‘let us, if possible, not think or speak of her again.’ ‘Well, well, dearest husband,’ returned my mother, ‘I will not urge it now; but here is a poor creature, the daughter of—’ ‘Away—away!’ hastily and vehemently interrupted my unhappy parent. ‘I have no daughter now.’ ‘No,’ replied my mother; ‘but this repentant child, the daughter of a neighbor, is on her way to ask forgiveness of her offended father. She faints with shame and grief, and dares not meet him. Do speak a word or two of comfort to her, and teach her in what words she should address him to gain his blessing, and to sooth his anguish.’ ‘None,’ replied my father, hastily, and his eyes beaming wild, ‘none. Let her not dare to look upon him. Let not her presence insult the home her infamy has disgraced. Perhaps, too, she had a mother, rich in every virtue. Let her shun that mother, for contamination is in her touch. Virtue can hold no intercourse with vice, though vice, with double baseness, kneels affecting reverence for virtue.’ I found it impossible to help groaning aloud, as I listened to my father’s observations, and I threw myself into my mother’s arms. He turned his eyes steadily upon me for a minute or so, and then resumed— ‘Yet hold! I will not judge too harshly; for there are shades of guilt, and hers, perhaps, may not be of so deep a dye as to preclude forgiveness. Perhaps her father was not affectionate—Perhaps (poor child!) he was morose and frigid. Perhaps neglectful, cold, unindulgent.’ ‘Oh, no!’ I sobbed, and sank on my knees before him with clasped and upraised hands, ‘he was most kind, affectionate, and good.’ ‘What,’ eagerly demanded my poor parent, ‘did he love you better than all the world?—did he rear you in domestic tenderness, and train you in the paths of virtue?—did he clasp you to his doting heart, and in his foolish pride proclaim his child the paragon of earth?—and did you then blast all of his fond hopes, and clinging to another, leave him in his storm of grief?’ Again I groaned with the almost insupportable power of my anguish, and still remained on my knees before him. ‘Dearest husband,’ said my mother, ‘do not aggravate the dear child’s misery. She is repentant—she is the shorn lamb, temper the storm to her affliction, but do not add another wound to a heart already too much lacerated.’ ‘Well, well,’ returned my father, ‘be it so. I will forget my own, and try to sooth her sorrows. Young woman, rise.’ He raised me from the earth, and taking my hand tenderly, continued:— ‘What your miseries are, I well can guess; but what your father’s sufferings are I too well know. You fear to meet his eye; you dread to hear his curse. A father’s curse is heavy; shall I paint this agonizing suffering to you, child! I can do so; for I have felt it. I have it now. I once had a daughter.’