pa," said she, "use your most ingenious devices to show me
how I am to answer all these engagements, and while I meet Mr. Winthrop
in Switzerland, contrive also to be on guard here, and on outpost duty
with Mr. Ludlow Paten."

"You 'll do it, Loo,--you 'll do it, or nobody else will," said he,
sipping his iced drink, and gazing on her approvingly.

"What would you say to Bregenz for our rendezvous with Winthrop?" said
she, bending over the map. "It is as quiet and forgotten a spot as any I
know of."

"So it is, Loo; and one of the very few where the English never go, or,
at least, never sojourn."

"I wish we could manage to find a small house or a cottage there.
I should like to be what dramatists call 'discovered' in a humbly
furnished chamber, living with my dear old father, venerable in years
and virtues."

"Well, it ought not to be difficult to manage. If you like, I 'll set
off there and make the arrangements. I could start this evening."

"How good of you! Let me think a little over it, and I will decide. It
would be a great comfort to me to have you here when Charles Heathcote
comes. I might need your assistance in many ways, but perhaps--Yes, you
had better go; and a pressing entreaty on your part for me to hasten
to the death-bed of my 'poor aunt' can be the reason for my own hurried
departure. Is it not provoking how many embarrassments press at the same
moment? It is an attack front, rear, and on the flanks."

"You 're equal to it, dear,--you 're equal to it," said he, with the
same glance of encouragement.

"I almost think I should go with you, papa,--take French leave of these
good people, and evacuate the fortress,--if it were not that next week
I expect Ludlow to be back here with the letters, and I cannot neglect
_that_. Can you explain it to me?" cried she, more eagerly,--"there
is not one in this family for whom I entertain the slightest sense of
regard,--they are all less than indifferent to me,--and yet I would
do anything, endure anything, rather than they should learn my true
history, and know all about my past life; and this, too, with the
certainty that we were never to meet again."

"That is pride, Loo,--mere pride."

"No," said she, tremulously, "it is shame. The consciousness that one's
name is never to be uttered but in scorn in those places where once it
was always spoken of in honor,--the thought that the fair fame we had
done so much to build up should be a dreary ruin, is one