e will be ashamed to have wronged him by
unworthy suspicions."

"Believe me, father," exclaimed Mildred, rising to a tone of animation
that awakened the natural eloquence of her feelings, and gave them vent
in language which more resembled the display of a practised orator than
the declamation of a girl, "believe me, he imposes on you. His purposes
are intensely selfish. If he has obtained an authority to treat with you
or others under an assumed name, it has only been to further his
personal ends. Already has he succeeded in plunging you, against your
will, into the depth of this quarrel. Your time, my dear father, which
once glided as softly and as happily as yon sparkling waters through our
valley, is now consumed in deliberations that wear out your spirits:
your books are abandoned for the study of secret schemes of politics:
you are perplexed and anxious at every account that reaches us of
victory or defeat. It was not so, until you saw Tyrrel: your nights,
that once knew a long and healthful sleep, are now divided by short and
unrefreshing slumbers: you complain of unpleasant dreams and you
foretell some constantly coming disaster. Indeed, dearest father, you
are not what you were. You wrong yourself by these cares, and you do not
know how anxiously my brother Henry and myself watch, in secret, this
unhappy change in your nature. How can I think with patience of this
Tyrrel when I see these things?"

"The times, Mildred, leave me no choice. When a nation struggles to
throw off the rule of lawful authority, the friends of peace and order
should remember that the riotous passions of the refractory people are
not to be subdued without personal sacrifices."

"You promised yourself, father, here at the Dove Cote to live beyond the
sphere of these excitements. And, as I well remember, you often, as the
war raged, threw yourself upon your knees, and taught us,--your
children,--to kneel by your side, and we put up our joint expressions of
gratitude to God, that, at least, this little asylum was undisturbed by
the angry passions of man."

"We did, we did, my dearest child. But I should think it sinful to pray
for the same quiet when my services might be useful to restore harmony
to a distracted and misguided country."

"Do you now think," asked Mildred, "that your efforts are or can be of
any avail to produce peace?"

"The blessing of heaven has descended upon the arms of our sovereign,"
replied Lindsay. "The southe