ears trickling on her neck.

At length Venetia looked up and sighed; she was exhausted by the
violence of her emotions: her father relaxed his grasp with infinite
tenderness, watching her with delicate solicitude; she leaned her arm
upon his shoulder with downcast eyes.

Herbert gently took her disengaged hand, and pressed it to his lips.
'I am as in a dream,' murmured Venetia.

'The daughter of my heart has found her sire,' said Herbert in an
impassioned voice. 'The father who has long lived upon her fancied
image; the father, I fear, she has been bred up to hate.'

'Oh! no, no!' said Venetia, speaking rapidly and with a slight shiver;
'not hate! it was a secret, his being was a secret, his name was never
mentioned; it was unknown.'

'A secret! My existence a secret from my child, my beautiful fond
child!' exclaimed Herbert in a tone even more desolate than bitter.
'Why did they not let you at least hate me!'

'My father!' said Venetia, in a firmer voice, and with returning
animation, yet gazing around her with a still distracted air, 'Am I
with my father? The clouds clear from my brain. I remember that we
met. Where was it? Was it at Arqua? In the garden? I am with my
father!' she continued in a rapid tone and with a wild smile. 'Oh! let
me look on him;' and she turned round, and gazed upon Herbert with
a serious scrutiny. 'Are you my father?' she continued, in a still,
small voice. 'Your hair has grown grey since last I saw you; it was
golden then, like mine. I know you are my father,' she added, after a
pause, and in a tone almost of gaiety. 'You cannot deceive me. I know
your name. They did not tell it me; I found it out myself, but it made
me very ill, very; and I do not think I have ever been quite well
since. You are Marmion Herbert. My mother had a dog called Marmion,
when I was a little girl, but I did not know I had a father then.'

'Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, with streaming eyes, as he listened with
anguish to these incoherent sentences. 'My Venetia loves me!'

'Oh! she always loved you,' replied Venetia; always, always. Before
she knew her father she loved him. I dare say you think I do not love
you, because I am not used to speak to a father. Everything must be
learnt, you know,' she said, with a faint, sad smile; 'and then it
was so sudden! I do not think my mother knows it yet. And after all,
though I found you out in a moment, still, I know not why, I thought
it was a picture. But I read your