attle with less peril to life
than he faced every day of his existence, and all for one object,--all
that his daughter might breathe an atmosphere from which he must live
excluded, and know a world whose threshold he should never pass. Such
was the terrible conflict that now raged within him as he reviewed the
past, and saw to what a narrow issue he had reduced his one chance of
happiness. "There she stands now," thought he, "all that my fondest
hopes had ever fashioned her; and who is to say what one word--one
single word uttered by my lips--may not make of that noble nature, pure
and spotless as it is? How will she bear to hear that her station is
a deception, her whole life a lie,--that she is the daughter of Grog
Davis, the leg?" Heaven knows with what dexterous artifices he had often
met this difficulty as it used to present itself to his mind, how he
had seen in what way he could extricate himself, how reconcile his own
shortcomings with her high-soaring tastes and habits! Whatever such
devices he had ever conceived, none came to his aid now; not one offered
him the slightest assistance.

Then came another thought,--"How long is this deception to be carried
on? Am I to wait?" said he, "and if so, for what? Ay, there's the
question, for what? Is it that some other may break the news to her,
and tell her whose daughter she is?" In that world he knew best he could
well imagine with what especial malice such a tale would be revealed.
Not that slander need call imagination to its aid. Alas! his life had
incidents enough for malignity to gloat over!

His stout arm shook, and his strong frame trembled with a sort of
convulsive shudder as these thoughts flashed across his mind.

"Are you cold, dearest pa? Are you ill?" asked she, eagerly.

"No. Why do you ask?" said he, sternly.

"You trembled all over; I was afraid you were not well."

"I 'm never ill," said he, in the same tone. "There 's a bullet in me
somewhere about the hip--they can't make out exactly where--gives me
a twinge of pain now and then. Except that, I never knew what ailment
means."

"In what battle?"

"It was n't a battle," broke he in; "it was a duel. It's an old story
now, and not worth remembering. There, you need not shudder, girl;
the fellow who shot me is alive, though, I must say, he has n't a very
graceful way of walking. Do you ever read the newspapers,--did they
allow you ever to read them at school?"

"No; but occasionally I used to