if friends
abandoned me, if my reason were blighted, and I was doomed to wander
barefooted amongst thorns and briers, I would not exchange that lot, to
be his wife amidst ten-fold his honors and wealth. I never can listen to
his hateful proposal: there is that in my condition which would make it
wicked. Pray, dearest father, as you love your daughter, do not speak of
it to me again."

"Resume your calmness, child: your earnestness on this subject afflicts
me; it has a fearful omen in it. It tells of a heart fatally devoted to
one whom, of all men, I have greatest reason to hate. This unhappy,
lingering passion for the sworn enemy of his king and country, little
becomes my daughter, or her regard for me. It may rouse me, Mildred, to
some unkind wish against thee. Oh, I could curse myself that I ever
threw you in the way of this insidious rebel, Butler. Nay you need not
conceal your tears; well do they deserve to flow for this persevering
transgression against the peace of your father's house. It requires but
little skill to read the whole history of your heart."

Lindsay now walked to and fro across the apartment, under the influence
of emotions which he was afraid to trust himself to utter. At length
resuming his expostulation, in a somewhat moderate tone, he continued:

"Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory?
Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head? I do not speak
of my own suffering. Will you for ever nurse a hopeless attachment for a
man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again?
Whom if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal
subject, do not bring him merited punishment, the halter may reward, or,
in his most fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty, and shame pursue. Are
you for ever to love that man?"

Mildred stood before her father as he brought this appeal to a close;
her eyes filled with tears, her breast heaving as if it would burst; and
summoning up all her courage for her reply, when this last question was
asked, she looked with an expression of almost angry defiance in his
face, as she answered "For ever, for ever," and hastily left the room.

The firm tone in which Mildred spoke these last words, her proud and
almost haughty bearing, so unlike anything Lindsay had ever seen before,
and her abrupt departure from his presence, gave a check to the current
of his thoughts that raised the most painful emotions. For an insta