“I am glad I have such a good daughter,” said her father, kissing her, after the lapse of several days. “I am trying to be good,” she answered, turning away, with a conscience not altogether clear. “If there is anything you would like to say to me, you know you must not hesitate. You needn’t feel obliged to be so quiet. I shouldn’t care that Mr. Townsend should be a frequent topic of conversation, but whenever you have anything particular to say about him I shall be very glad to hear it.” “Thank you,” said Catherine; “I have nothing particular at present.” He never asked her whether she had seen Morris again, because he was sure that if this had been the case she would tell him. She had, in fact, not seen him, she had only written him a long letter. The letter at least was long for her; and, it may be added, that it was long for Morris; it consisted of five pages, in a remarkably neat and handsome hand. Catherine’s handwriting was beautiful, and she was even a little proud of it; she was extremely fond of copying, and possessed volumes of extracts which testified to this accomplishment; volumes which she had exhibited one day to her lover, when the bliss of feeling that she was important in his eyes was exceptionally keen. She told Morris in writing that her father had expressed the wish that she should not see him again, and that she begged he would not come to the house until she should have “made up her mind.” Morris replied with a passionate epistle, in which he asked to what, in Heaven’s name, she wished to make up her mind. Had not her mind been made up two weeks before, and could it be possible that she entertained the idea of throwing him off? Did she mean to break down at the very beginning of their ordeal, after all the promises of fidelity she had both given and extracted? And he gave an account of his own interview with her father—an account not identical at all points with that offered in these pages. “He was terribly violent,” Morris wrote; “but you know my self-control. I have need of it all when I remember that I have it in my power to break in upon your cruel captivity.” Catherine sent him, in answer to this, a note of three lines. “I am in great trouble; do not doubt of my affection, but let me wait a little and think.” The idea of a struggle with her father, of setting up her will against his own, was heavy on her soul, and it kept her formally submissive, as a great physical weight keeps us motionless. It never entered into her mind to throw her lover off; but from the first she tried to assure herself that there would be a peaceful way out of their difficulty. The assurance was vague, for it contained no element of positive conviction that her father would change his mind. She only had an idea that if she should be very good, the situation would in some mysterious manner improve. To be good, she must be patient, respectful, abstain from judging her father too harshly, and from committing any act