THIS event was a severe mortification to the proud spirit of _Shepherd_, the father of _Ophelia_. His resentment to his daughter was implacable, and his revenge of the injury from _Martin_ not to be satiated. The blaze of family dispute raged with unquenchable fury—and poor _Ophelia_ received other punishment from the hand of a vindictive father than base recrimination. THE affection of _Martin_ now became changed to the vilest hatred. THUS doomed to suffer the blackest ingratitude from her seducer on the one hand, and to experience the severity of paternal vengeance on the other—and before her the gloomy prospect of a blasted reputation—what must be the situation of the hapless _Ophelia_! Hope, the last resort of the wretched, was forever shut out. There was no one whom she durst implore by the tender name of father, and he, who had seduced her from her duty and her virtue, was the first to brand her with the disgraceful epithets of undutiful and unchaste. PERHAPS it was only at this time, that she became fully sensible of her danger; the flattery and dissimulation of _Martin_ might have banished the idea of detection, and glossed over that of criminality; but now she awoke from her dream of insensibility, she was like one who had been deluded by an _ignis fatuus_ to the brink of a precipice, and there abandoned to his reflection to contemplate the horrours of the sea beneath him, into which he was about to plunge. WHETHER from the promises of _Martin_, or the flattery of her own fancy, is unknown, but it is said she expected to become his wife, and made use of many expedients to obtain a divorcement of _Martin_ from her sister: But this is the breath of rumour: Allowing it to be truth, it appears to be the last attempt of despair; for such unnatural exertions, with the compunction attending them, represent a gloomy picture of the struggle between sisterly affection and declining honour. They however proved inavailable, and her efforts to that end, may with propriety be deemed a wretched subterfuge. IN the mean while the rage of _Shepherd_ was augmenting. Time, instead of allaying, kindled the flame of revenge in the breast of the old man. A sense of the wounded honour of his family, became every day more exquisite; he resolved to call a meeting of the parties, in which the whole mystery should be developed—that _Ophelia_ should confront her seducer, and a thorough enquiry and explication be brought about.