how you conceal it; for if it should be discovered
by your father or sisters, they will take it from you, prosecute the
wretched mother, and send the child to the parish."

"I will do all I can to prevent them," said Rebecca; "and I think I call
to mind a part of the house where it _must_ be safe. I know, too, I can
take milk from the dairy, and bread from the pantry, without their being
missed, or my father much the poorer. But if--" That instant they were
interrupted by the appearance of the stern curate at a little distance.
Henry was obliged to run swiftly away, while Rebecca returned by stealth
into the house with her innocent burthen.

CHAPTER XXVI.

There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its
import, than all the rest. Reader, if poverty, if disgrace, if bodily
pain, even if slighted love be your unhappy fate, kneel and bless Heaven
for its beneficent influence, so that you are not tortured with the
anguish of--_remorse_.

Deep contrition for past offences had long been the punishment of unhappy
Agnes; but, till the day she brought her child into the world, _remorse_
had been averted. From that day, life became an insupportable load, for
all reflection was torture! To think, merely to think, was to suffer
excruciating agony; yet, never before was _thought_ so intrusive--it
haunted her in every spot, in all discourse or company: sleep was no
shelter--she never slept but her racking dreams told her--"she had slain
her infant."

They presented to her view the naked innocent whom she had longed to
press to her bosom, while she lifted up her hand against its life. They
laid before her the piteous babe whom her eyeballs strained to behold
once more, while her feet hurried her away for ever.

Often had Agnes, by the winter's fire, listened to tales of ghosts--of
the unceasing sting of a guilty conscience; often had she shuddered at
the recital of murders; often had she wept over the story of the innocent
put to death, and stood aghast that the human mind could premeditate the
heinous crime of assassination.

From the tenderest passion the most savage impulse may arise: in the deep
recesses of fondness, sometimes is implanted the root of cruelty; and
from loving William with unbounded lawless affection, she found herself
depraved so as to become the very object which could most of all excite
her own horror!

Still, at delirious intervals, that passion, which, like a fatal
t