he flattery, and at times
Would flatter his own wish, in age, for love,
And half believe her true.
--TENNYSON.

As soon as the subtle siren was left alone in the drawing-room with the
aged clergyman she began weaving her spells around him as successfully
as did the beautiful enchantress Vivien around the sage Merlin.

Throwing her bewildering dark eyes up to his face she murmured in
hurried tones:

"You _will_ not betray me to this family? Oh, consider! I am so young
and so helpless!"

"And so beautiful," added the old man under his breath, as he gazed with
involuntary admiration upon her fair, false face. Then, aloud, he said:
"I have already told you, wretched child, that I would forbear to expose
you so long as you should conduct yourself with strict propriety here;
but no longer."

"You do not trust me. Ah, you do not see that one false step with its
terrible consequences has been such an awful and enduring lesson to me
that I could not make another! I am safer now from the possibility of
error than is the most innocent and carefully guarded child. Oh, can you
not understand this?" she asked, pathetically.

And her argument was a very specious and plausible one, and it made an
impression.

"I can well believe that the fearful retribution that followed so fast
upon your 'false step,' as you choose to call it, has been and will be
an awful warning to you. But some warnings come too late. What _can_ be
your long future life?" he sadly inquired.

"Alas, what?" she echoed, with a profound sigh. "Even under the most
propitious circumstances--_what?_ If I am permitted to stay here I shall
be buried alive in this country house, without hope of resurrection.
Perhaps fifty years I may have to live here. The old lady will die. Emma
will marry. Her children will grow up and marry. And in all the changes
of future years I shall vegetate here without change, and without hope
except in the better world. And yet, dreary as the prospect is, it is
the best that I can expect, the best that I can even desire, and much
better than I deserve," she added, with a humility that touched the old
man's heart.

"I feel sorry for you, child; very, very sorry for your blighted young
life. Poor child, you can never be happy again; but listen--_you can be
good!_" he said, very gently.

And then he suddenly remembered what her bewildering charms had made him
for a moment forget--that w