oughly acceptable to me."

"So my mother told me."

"Indeed? She should blush to remember it. While she wore his engagement
ring, she forgot her promise to him, her duty to me, her lineage, her
birth, her position--and was inveigled by a low adventurer who--"

"Who was my own precious father--poor, but noble, and worthy of any
princess! Unless you can refer to him respectfully, name him not at
all, in his child's presence."

She suddenly towered over him, like some threatening fate, and her
uplifted arm trembled from the intensity of her indignation.

"At least--you are loyal to your tribe!"

"I am, to my heart's core. You could pay me no higher compliment."

"Ellice wrote that she had bestowed her affections on--on--the 'exiled
scion of a noble house,' who paid his board bill by teaching languages
and music in the school; and who very naturally preferred to marry a
rich fool, who would pay them for him. I answered her letter, which was
addressed to her own mother--then quite ill at home--and I told her
precisely what she might expect, if she persisted in her insane folly.
As soon as my wife convalesced sufficiently to render my departure
advisable, I started to bring my daughter home; but she ran away, a few
hours before my arrival, and while, hoping to rescue Ellice, I was in
pursuit of the precious pair, my wife relapsed and died--the victim of
excitement brought on by her child's disgrace. I came back here to a
desolate, silent house;--bereft of wife and daughter; and in the grave
of her mother, I buried every atom of love and tenderness I ever
entertained for Ellice. When the sun is suddenly blotted out at noon,
and the world turns black--black, we grope to and fro aimlessly; but
after awhile, we accommodate ourselves to the darkness;--and so, I
became a different man--very hard, and I dare say very bitter. The
world soon learned that I would tolerate no illusion to my disgrace,
and people respected my family cancer, and prudently refrained from
offering me nostrums to cure it. My wife had a handsome estate of her
own right, and every cent of her fortune I collected, and sent with her
jewelry to Ellice. Did you know this?"

"I have heard only of the jewels."

"As I supposed, the money was squandered before you could recollect."

"I know that we were reduced to poverty, by the failure of some banking
house in Paris. I was old enough when it occurred, to remember ever
afterward, the dismay and distress it