CHAPTER IV.

The earth is covered with its pure white mantle, each crystal atom is sparkling under the rays of the winter sun, almost inviting one to have a bracing walk and forget one's troubles; but I take no heed, but sit in a sort of stupid despair until I am aroused by the door opening, and father enters.

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Well, Mable," he begins, in as cheery a tone as though he were proposing some pleasant excursion in which I shall readily join; "well, Mable, are you ready now to do what I ask of you?"

"No, father. I have not changed, and I cannot accede to your request." "Oh! come, that is rubbish. You, at your age," father continues, loftily, “are naturally romantic, and fancy yourself ready to give up everything for young Temple."

"Excuse me, father, it is no fancy, it is a reality—a love that has grown with me every

hour since my birth, that has become part of my very being; if I am separated from Jack I am separated from my life's existence." "Come, that will do that is quite enough of the heroics. I want you to listen to stern truth now, Mable, and give me your full attention."

"When I was young, in fact, after I had just married your mother, I was led by some one much older than myself to commit an act of egregious folly and awful wickedness. Only one person knew of my secret, and that was the father of the present Lord Elston, who promised never to betray it to anyone if I held you, then a tiny baby, betrothed to his son of ten years. Willingly I promised this, naturally thinking that the young lord would most probably have seen and loved some one long before you came of an age to marry, but this has proved not to be the case, and soon after your mother's death. he proposed for your hand. Not knowing of your secret engagement, I asked him to wait until the sorrow for your mother's death had partly subsided. He did so, but constantly since then he has been pressing me to plead his cause with you."

"But, father," I gasp, "surely his lordship would not have me marry him when I do not love him?"

I put this before him also, Mable, but he said that if you hated him he would still marry you, and if you refused he would divulge the secret he had hitherto so well kept. So Mable," my father continues, “it lies with you to make known to the world your father's shame, or to exercise a little self-denial and still keep our name unspotted from the world."

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Oh! father," I gasp, "this is indeed worse than I thought. Why should we be so cursed? But you must leave me, and let me think it all over before I give you the required promise."

"Come, that's spoken more like a brave You shall come and tell me your deci

woman.

sion to-morrow morning in my study."

After I am alone at first my thoughts almost refuse to be collected, but after a short time I see what is required of me. Putting it in plain english I am to be sold as irretrievably as any

poor slave girl in the olden times, not for so

much gold, but for misery I feel I shall be called upon to endure, for what blessing can any of us How am I to tell bearing the death

expect upon such a union. Jack? How send a letter

warrant to all his happiness!

I never think of braving all and securing my own joy by a runaway marriage. Oh! how often did I in after years regret that I had not. My one thought seems to be that of guarding the secret already known by my would-be affianced husband from the world's cruel criticism.

Yes! before the clock has chimed midnight I have fully determined to sacrifice my own life's happiness for my father's, or, as I like better to think of it, for mother's husband, for then I feel as though I were doing some little thing for her, my heart's idol. When I awake next morning, after but a few hours' rest, I awake feeling that something disagreeable has occurred, but very quickly I remember what is required of me, and what is causing my heart to feel so overburdened. And then comes the thought-how am I to tell Jack? I will write directly, before my courage fails me, and tell him the plain unvarnished truth. Never do I guess that even that letter

is not allowed to go, but that it is my father's cruel will that Jack is to be allowed to draw his own conclusions from my silence, and judge me as he thinks I deserve.

Then I dress and I go to father's study, and receive his first unasked for caress when I tell him that he may tell Lord Elston that if he cares to marry a girl without a particle of love or respect for him I am ready when he pleases.

I have written my letter-sent the deathblow to our earthly happiness-written it and put it in the post-box in the hall-written it feeling that two people are to be severed, who, if it is true that marriages are made in heaven, are as truly divorced as any that have been separated by an earthly judge.