the confession she was forced to make of a parent's
delinquency. At length she spoke of the decision which was expected
from her that night.

'And how do you intend to act?' asked her companion in breathless
anxiety. 'I feel that I dare not offer you counsel. I am too deeply
interested; for it would be draining the last drop of earthly bliss
from my cup to see you wedded to any other than to my son.'

'I never will, Mrs Lyddiard,' cried Amy energetically, rising at the
same time from her kneeling position beside the bed of the invalid.
'I feel myself justified in making this resolution. I have been an
unwilling, nay, I may say an unconscious agent in a scheme of
dishonour; but I should be culpable if, by any act of mine, I
furthered it, even though the motive should be to save a parent from
disgrace and a prison. Still, my father claims my duteous regard, and
so long as my personal exertions and self-denial can afford him aid,
I will never desert him.'

'You have spoken nobly, my dear Amy,' Mrs Lyddiard exclaimed, her
eyes brightening, and her pale cheek flushing with pleasure. 'Your
own upright heart is your best adviser, and Heaven will aid your
filial piety.'

As our heroine prudently wished to avoid a meeting with her lover,
she left the house earlier than she otherwise would have done, and
returned home to prepare her mind for the trial which awaited her.
She resolved to decline the baronet's suit respectfully, yet firmly,
alluding with gratitude to the services he had rendered her father;
and she hoped much, notwithstanding the anger he had evinced, from
the natural mildness of his character. She had not, however, been
long in her chamber, when she, to her surprise, received another
summons from her father, who she had imagined to be from home. The
dark frown which clouded his brow too surely indicated the state of
his feelings. 'You may spare yourself the trouble of refusing Sir
Philip Rushwood, Miss Beaufort,' he sneeringly remarked, as she
tremblingly took a seat by his side; 'you will not have the
opportunity of displaying your triumph.'

'What do you mean, papa?' Amy interrogated, wholly at a loss to
understand the import of his words.

'Oh, you are in utter ignorance that your vagabond suitor, Lyddiard,
left a billet for you this morning,' he resumed in the same sarcastic
strain; 'and you are quite unconscious that you were carried in a
coach to his residence; but the lynx-eye of jealousy watched yo