‘Oh, sir, do not name her!’ I cried, with a feeling of agony, too powerful for utterance. ‘Oh, how I doted on that daughter,’ he continued, and his countenance betrayed the terrible mental agony he was enduring. ‘How I adored her, words cannot tell; thoughts cannot measure! Yet—she sacrificed me to a villain,—her ingratitude has bleached this head,—her wickedness has broken this heart, and now my detestation is upon her! Oh, do not you resemble her,—remain not a moment longer from your father,—fly to him ere his heart give way, as mine does now—ere he curses you as I now curse—’ ‘Oh, no more!’ I interrupted, darting forward in excessive agitation; ‘in mercy, oh, no more.’ ‘Ha!’ groaned my father, as he recognized me and retreated from me, ‘away! away! away!’ In a wild delirium of agony, I followed him on my knees, exclaiming, in frantic accents,— ‘Your vengeance cannot make you deaf to the agony of a despairing child; behold me on my knees; I bring the sacrifice of a broken spirit. I do not ask your love till you know I am worthy of being loved. I do not ask your confidence till you feel I can be trusted; but do not deny me the shelter of your paternal roof.’ ‘My father spurned me violently from him, and as he did so, he cried, in hoarse tones,— ‘Hence! hence!—I know you not! My sight rejects you—spurns you! If you have wasted all the spoils of guilt, there—there’s gold! Your idol, gold! for which you bartered all your hopes of bliss!’ He dashed a purse furiously to the earth as he spoke, and hastened towards my mother, fixing upon me looks of scorn and hatred. Oh, Heaven! how each glance penetrated to my soul! How every word burnt to my heart! It was wonderful that reason could retain her empire in that trying scene. ‘Father! father!’ I implored, with redoubled vehemence, ‘hear me, I beseech you.’ ‘Husband, dearest husband!’ supplicated my mother, ‘hear her, she is innocent.’ ‘Innocent!’ he reiterated, ‘she innocent! No, no, impossible!—she left us; left her happy parents—her happy home—to follow a villain!’ ‘Father, dearest father!’ I cried, ‘temper mercy, I pray you, with your severity. I am not the poor, guilty, degraded being that you suppose me to be. Your child is still virtuous—still unpolluted; her only crime has been in loving one too fondly, who sought to betray her! In the name of Heaven, I assert my innocence, and if I speak not the truth, may its most awful vengeance descend upon my head! But you cannot, you will not, longer doubt me. I see you will not! Oh, bless you for this, father, father!’ I could say no more; but sobbing convulsively, I threw myself into his arms! He wept;—yes, I could feel his chest heave with the power of mental anguish, and the big round tear of sorrow fell from his eye upon my cheek; he pressed me with all the fervour he had ever been wont to do to his heart, and ere he pronounced it, I knew that I was forgiven.