iction of her duty to a parent who
loved her with unbounded devotion, would not allow her altogether to
conceal it. Upon this subject, Lindsay had sufficiently read her heart
to know much more about it than she chose to confess; and it did not
fail to kindle up in his mind a feverish excitement, that occasionally
broke forth in even a petulant reproof, and to furnish the only occasion
that had ever arisen of serious displeasure against his daughter. The
unhappy association between this incident in the life of Mildred, and
the current of a feeling which had its foundation in a weak piece of
superstition, to which I have alluded in a former chapter, gave to the
idea of Mildred's marriage with Butler a fatal complexion in Lindsay's
thoughts. "For what purpose," he asked himself, "but to avert this
ill-omened event could I have had such an extraordinary warning?" It had
occurred to him that the surest method of protecting his family against
this misfortune would be to throw Mildred into other associations, and
encourage the growth of other attachments, such as might be expected to
grow up in her heart out of the kindness of new friendships. He had even
meditated removing her to England, but that plan became so repulsive to
him when he found the mention of it distasteful to his children, and it
suited so little his own fondness for the retirement he had already
cultivated, that he had abandoned it almost as soon as it occurred to
him. His next alternative was to favor--though he did so with no great
zeal--the proposal lately made by Tyrrel. He little knew the character
of the woman he had to deal with. Never was more devotion enshrined in a
woman's heart than in Mildred's. Never was more fixed and steady purpose
to encounter all hazards and hold cheap all dangers more deeply rooted
in man's or woman's resolution, than was Mildred's to cherish the love
and follow the fortunes of Arthur Butler.

This conflict between love and filial duty sadly perplexed the
daughter's peace; and not less disturbing was the strife between
parental affection and the supposed mandate of fate, in the breast of
the father.

Henry protested his sorrow for his recent indiscretion and promised more
caution for the future, and then recurring to what more immediately
concerned his sister's interest, he said, "I do much wonder what
Tyrrel's man had to say this morning; it took our good gentleman away so
suddenly. I can't help thinking it has something t