The last few years she has been thrown almost entirely with me, and not much above a twelvemonth since she shrunk from the idea of confiding in any one as she did in me." "And while that confidence exists, my Emmeline, you surely have no right to fear." "But it is waning, Arthur.

The last month I know, I feel it is decreasing.

She is no longer the same open-hearted girl with me as she was so lately at Oakwood.

She is withdrawing her confidence from her mother, to bestow it on one whom I feel assured is unworthy of it." "Nay, Emmeline, your anxiety must be blinding you; you are too anxious." His wife answered him not in words, but she raised her expressive eyes to his face, and he saw they were filled with tears.
"Nay, nay, my beloved!" he exclaimed, as he folded her to his bosom, struck with sudden self-reproach.

"Have my unkind words called forth these tears?
forgive me, my best love; I think I love my children, but I know not half the depths of a mother's tenderness, my Emmeline, nor that clear-sightedness which calls for disquietude so much sooner in her gentle heart than in a father's.