d it, and
left his child an heiress--a Temptation--a prize for all the bumpkins
and graziers about us. I was glad to live with her. We kept house
together. We were both of an age--young, handsome, lively, and for our
station, or rather for a higher one, well educated. Here again ceased
the resemblance. Like my father, I was open, guileless,
unsuspecting--and it destroyed me. She was mean, cunning, treacherous,
and would--but HELL was too strong for her--have triumphed. My cousin
had numerous offers of marriage. I had none. Among several young men
who frequented our society, was a substantial farmer named Barnard.
You have seen him. When you first beheld him he was little altered. He
had ever that cursed look of Cain upon his forehead, though I branded
it a little deeper. Do not thus stop me!--breath!--I have breath
enough. Barnard was gay, smooth, agreeable--what was more, he was _my_
suitor--the only one amid throngs that was attentive, kind, obliging
to me. I felt first grateful, and next loved him--you shall hear HOW
WELL.

"Our match began to be talked of. Martha from some whim disapproved of
it. He ceased to visit at the house--but I would not give him up; and
while he contemplated, as I thought, arrangements for our marriage, we
often met alone. Judgment is over with him now--mine is at hand, and I
will not load him with guilt that, after all, may not be his. He was
the only being that cared for me on earth, and I clung to him with a
tenfold affection. How do I know but it was this mad confidence that
first awoke the villain in his soul? That wine"--

I held the glass to her lips; and, while I wiped the damp drops of
agony from her brow, I besought her to defer the sequel of her story
until she was more capable of pursuing it.

"No," she said; "it must be now, or not at all. I am stronger than I
have been for months to-day. Where was I?--Stealing back day after day
to Martha's, a trampled, but not an unhoping spirit; for I still
looked forward to _his_ fulfilling his promise. He once more was a
visitor at our house. I did not know why--I did not care--he was
there, and I was satisfied: I had no eyes for any thing else. But the
blow was coming. It fell--it smote us all to dust.

"I was one morning occupied alone in some domestic duty, when I heard
Barnard's name pronounced by two female servants of our farm, who were
employed in the next apartment. I listened--poor souls! they were
merely agreeing 'how natural