f despair;--we came to this lone, obscure spot,
where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first,
curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's
incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little
while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you
have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence,
unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon
your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a
father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human
goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of
revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice
shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage
will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.

"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for
such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt
you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need
not tell you this.

"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should
it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you
have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive
memories rise against him.

"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly
Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of
him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of
the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him
for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green
fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never
prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the
purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to
obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have
turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him
then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the
heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.

"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained
to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.

"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that
you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss,
lowe