For herself, she had resolved to remain there, her proper post now was by her father. She knelt at his couch, without touching him, and never turned an eye from him. In her heart swelled up a hope, a belief, that at length the old man might come to recognise her love, and to value it. An hour--then another passed, and neither the sleeper nor the watcher stirred; when suddenly the old man opened his eyes, in full wakefulness, and his eyes rested on her. He looked at her steadily, but with growing estrangement; then a little hectic colour kindled in his pale face, and he turned his head away. Then Bessie put her arm under his neck, and drew his head to her bosom, pressed it there, and kissed him, saying, "My father! my dear, dear father!" He drew a long and laboured breath, disengaged himself from her arms, and putting down his feet, sat up on the couch. She was kneeling before him, looking into his face. "Go--" said he, after a while, "I have been hard with thee, Bess! I have done thee wrong." She would have clasped and kissed him again, but he gently yet firmly put her from him, and yet--in so doing kept his eyes intently, questioningly, fixed on her. Was it to be--even as Luke said, that in losing Hall he was to find something he had not prized hitherto? CHAPTER LIV. A DAISY. As briefly as may be, we must give some account of the venture of Monmouth, which ended in such complete disaster. Charles, natural son of Charles II. by Lucy Walters, born in 1649, created Duke of Monmouth in 1663 by his father, was, as Pepys writes, "a most pretty spark;" "very handsome, extremely well made, and had an air of greatness answerable to his birth," says the Countess D'Aulnay; was his father's favourite son, and for some time it was supposed that King Charles II. would proclaim his legitimacy and constitute him heir to the Throne. He was vastly popular with the nation, which looked up to him as the protector of the Protestant religion against the Duke of York, whose accession to the Throne was generally dreaded on account of his known attachment to the Roman Church. James therefore always regarded him with jealousy and suspicion--a jealousy and suspicion greatly heightened and intensified by a memorable progress he had made in 1680, in the West, when incredible numbers flocked to see him. He first visited Wiltshire, and honoured Squire Thynne, of Longleate House, with his company for some days. Thence he journeyed into Somersetshire, where he found the roads lined with enthusiastic peasants, who saluted him with loud acclamations as the champion of the Protestant religion. In some towns and villages the streets and highways were strewn with herbs and flowers. When the Duke came within a few miles of White Ladington, the seat of George Speke, Esq., near Ilminster, he was met by two thousand riders, whose numbers rapidly increased to twenty thousand. His personal beauty, the charm of his manners, won the hearts of every one, and thus