Eveline Mandeville

of insensibility. All his efforts to arouse her were unavailing, and leaving her in the care of the distracted housemaid, he hastened off for t

compelled him to visit other patients, he left with an expression on his cou

ities of a sick-room; and, indeed, he became wonderfully gentle in his attentions. His touch was trained to be light and soft as a woman's, his step quiet, and his manner subdued. He would leave the room only for a few minutes at a time, and then return with an air of impatience, but it often happened that for hours together he wo

moon, no stars! When will morning come? Who made it dark

arent, often wringing her hands and manifesting the utmost distr

crushing the life-blood from my heart! Hark! don't you hear the drops fall as they are pressed out? Patter, patter, patter! Well, it will soon be over; they will see the blood; yes, and he, my once good, d

heavy-hearted father often feared she would never rouse again. But a higher stage of fever would awaken her from the

e name of the base slanderer. I know it is some villain. Father! how can you deny him the only means of defense? 'Unpleasant rencounter!' yes, to the vile miscreants, no doubt. 'Confidence!' My life! isn't Charles worthy of confidence, too? His word alone is worth a thousand oaths of such heartless slanderers as those that stab

some one in the distance. Ah, too well the wretched parent knew on what her thoughts were running. Too well he knew where and when the blow had fallen that smote hi

Turned from our door! without a word of comfort! How deadly pale he is

t none of its horrors by being repeated. Alas, it told but too plainly of the wreck his cruel words had made, and he trembled lest only the beginning of sorrows w

ion for a parent over an almost dying child! Who

r man! For all this there was no repentance in his soul; it was only regret and remorse-but oh, remorse how bitter! Not that his belief was changed as to the guilt and innocence of the parties, for he sti

ing condition of the invalid. In tones expressive of the deepest wretchedness, the daughter, once more arousing from the stupor of exhaust

hold him no more! Gone, and the darkness comes over me! Oh, this horrid gloom!-this

ther is here; he has not left you;

y call me? W

ather. Come with me; let m

me too: they are gone, and I shall die here. Oh, what will father say when he finds me dead? Well, it is best that he is away, for now he will not know that he has k

otions of his heart, that tears, the first that had bedewed his eyes since the death of his wife, streamed down his face. May we not hope that his prayer was heard? But the horrors of the sick room were not yet over. Eveline kept sleeping and waking, or rather, she lay in a state of stupor or raved in a delirium of fever, with occasional intervals of quiet, which sometimes lasted for hours, and excited delusive hopes in the heart of the father, that she was better, only to plunge him again into doubt and fear when the fever fi

y turn me off and disown me, but you cannot make me perjure myself before God at the altar. No, father, I will obey you in all else; in this I cannot, and will not.

hat your father will be so cruel"-and he laid his hand gently upon her, to assure her of his presence

eave me! help!" She began to scream very loudly, and Mr. Mandeville knew not what to do. The doctor

f knowing that the secrets of the place were his own. He had now but little fear that others would learn them, but this gleam of comfort was overshadowed by the increased apprehensions that his child's sickness must prove fatal. Indeed, hope had almost fled from his bosom, but he clung with a death-grasp to the desire for her recovery, if for nothing else,

the nurse and maid, and from them and the doctor kept himself advised of her condition. Oh, how his heart ached to be by the bedside of the sufferer! How, at times, his spirit rebelled at th

Duffel? Let th