“I am not,” said she, calmly; “it is gone; I was once though—­indeed, indeed I was; and it was said so; I was called the Fawn of—­of—­but it seems beauty passes like the flower of the field.”

“Darling, speak to me, to your papa.”

“I believe I am old now; an old woman, I suppose.  My hair is gray, and I am wrinkled; that’s the reason why they scorn me; well I was once both young and beautiful; but that is past.  Charles,” said she, catching her father’s hand and looking into it, “you are old, too, I believe.  Why—­why—­why, how is this?  Your hair is long and white.  Oh, what a change since I knew you last.  White hair! long, white, venerable, hair—­that’s old age—­

     “Pity old age within whose silver hairs
     Honor and reverence evermore do lie.”

“Thank God, dear Henry,” said her mother, “she is not at all events an idiot.  Children,” said she, “I trust you will remember your father’s advice, and bear this—­this——.”  But here the heart and strength of the mother herself were overcome, and she was sinking down when her son caught her ere she fell, and carried her out in his arms, accompanied by Maria and Agnes.

It would be difficult for any pen to paint the distraction of her father, thus placed in a state of divided apprehension between his daughter and his wife.

“Oh, my child, my child,” he exclaimed, “Perhaps in the midst of this misery, your mother may be dying!  May the God of all consolation support you and her!  What, oh what will become of us!”

“Well, well,” his daughter went on; “life’s a fearful thing that can work such anges; but why may we not as well pass at once from youth to old age as from happiness to misery?  Here we are both old; ay, and if we are gray it is less with age than affliction—­that’s one comfort—­I am young enough to be beautiful yet; but age, when it comes prematurely on the youthful, as it often does—­thanks to treachery and disappointment, ay, and thanks to a thousand causes which we all know but don’t wish to think of; age, I say, when it comes prematurely on the youthful, is just like a new and unfinished house that is suffered to fall into ruin—­desolation, naked, and fresh, and glaring—­without the reverence and grandeur of antiquity.  Yes—­yes—­yes; but there is another cause; and that must be whispered only to the uttermost depths of silence—­of silence; for silence is the voice of God.  That word—­that word!  Oh, how I shudder to think of it!  And who will pity me when I acknowledge it—­there is one—­one only—­who will mourn for my despair and the fate, foreordained and predestined, of one whom he loved—­that is my papa—­my papa only—­my papa only; for he knows that I am a castaway—–­A cast-away!”