in Germany and Italy, which would prevent their returning to England for some time, when she hoped all present irritation at her conduct would have subsided; that her father’s severity had tended to this step.  Had he been kind, and like other fathers, she would have sacrificed her own desires, conscious that his reason for prohibiting her union with Alphingham was good, however it might be secret; but when from her childhood her every wish had been unreasonably thwarted, she was compelled to choose in such a case for herself.  She should be sorry to live in enmity with her father, but even if she did, she never could regret the step she had taken.  To her mother she wrote as if assured of her forgiveness, or rather her continued favour; forgiveness she did not seem to think it at all necessary to ask, saying, she was sure her kind and indulgent mother would not regret her union with Lord Alphingham, when she solemnly declared it had made her happier than she had ever been before.  Such Lilla said were the contents of her letter; but the warm-hearted girl could not refer without indignation to the utter want of affection which breathed throughout.  Her mother, Lilla continued to say, had been in a most alarming state from the time she received the letter, but she fancied occasioned more by the dread of what her father would say on his return, than from Annie’s conduct.

When Mrs. Hamilton saw Lady Helen, she felt that Lilla was right.  The unhappy mother reproached her own carelessness, indolence, and Annie’s ingratitude, but it was evident the dread of her husband was uppermost in her mind—­a dread which made her so extremely ill, from a succession of violent and uncontrolled hysterics, that Mrs. Hamilton did not leave her the whole of that day; nor would she permit the unhappy father to enter his wife’s apartment on his return, till she had exacted from him a promise to forbear all reproaches towards his suffering wife, all allusions to the past.

With the stern brevity of the injured, Grahame addressed his disobedient child.  His forgiveness and his blessing he sent, though he said she had asked for neither; that he bore no enmity to her, he wrote; his home and his heart were ever open to receive her, should she again require the protection of the one, the affection of the other.  She had chosen for herself; linked her fate with one against whom many tongues had spoken, and he could only pray that her present happiness might never change.  Lord Alphingham he did not name.  Lady Helen’s letter was a curious mixture of reproach and affection, complaint and congratulation; and Annie might have found it difficult to discover in what manner she was affected towards the Viscount, or with regard to the elopement itself.  Perhaps of all the letters she received from home, Lilla’s was the most irritating to her, for it was written in all the bitter indignation, the unchecked reproaches of a young and ardent spirit, in whose eyes the heartlessness of her letter was