to affright. Their apprehensions were far more forcible than
their curiosity; they dared not ask a question, and even began to wish
he would continue silent upon the subject on which they feared to
listen. For near two hours he was so.----At length, after a short interval
from speaking, (during which they waited with anxiety for what he might
next say) he turned to Lady Matilda, and said,

"You don't ask for your father, my dear."

"I did not know it was proper:" she replied, timidly.

"It is always proper," answered Sandford, "for _you_ to think of him,
though he should never think on you."

She burst into tears, and said that she "_Did_ think of him, but she
felt an apprehension of mentioning his name"--and she wept bitterly while
she spoke.

"Do not think I reproved you," said Sandford; "I only told you what was
right."

"Nay," said Miss Woodley, "she does not weep for that--she fears her
father has not complied with her mother's request. Perhaps--not even read
her letter?"

"Yes, he _has_ read it," returned Sandford.

"Oh Heavens!" exclaimed Matilda, clasping her hands together, and the
tears falling still faster.

"Do not be so much alarmed, my dear," said Miss Woodley; "you know we
are prepared for the worst; and you know you promised your mother,
whatever your fate should be, to submit with patience."

"Yes," replied Matilda, "and I am prepared for every thing, but my
father's refusal to my dear mother."

"Your father has not refused your mother's request," replied Sandford.

She was leaping from her seat in ecstasy.

"But," continued he, "do you know what her request was?"

"Not entirely," replied Matilda, "and since it is granted, I am
careless. But she told me her letter concerned none but me."

To explain perfectly to Matilda, Lady Elmwood's letter, and that she
might perfectly understand upon what terms she was admitted into Elmwood
Castle, Sandford now read the letter to her; and repeated, as nearly as
he could remember, the whole of the conversation that passed between
Lord Elmwood and himself; not even sparing, through an erroneous
delicacy, any of those threats her father had denounced, should she dare
to transgress the limits he prescribed--nor did he try to soften, in one
instance, a word he uttered. She listened sometimes with tears,
sometimes with hope, but always with awe, and with terror, to every
sentence in which her father was concerned. Once she called him
cruel--then exclaim