"'Mrs. Mordecai, do not distress me farther. How can I credit your story? How can I believe that Miss Leah is aught but what she seems—the embodiment of health and beauty? Alas! for my broken, vanished hopes! Alas! for my golden dreams of the future!'
"'Oh! don't take things too much to heart, my boy. Leah does not care for you very much anyway. It will be but a small disappointment to her, if indeed she ever thought seriously of marrying you; and I remember to have heard her say that she never intended to marry— conscious of her affliction, I suppose.'
"Mark winced under these words, and replied, 'She need not have deceived me.'
"'Oh! girls will be girls, you know; and after you get over this trouble, if you still like the name, remember, here is Leah's sister Sarah, as fine a girl as you'll find anywhere, if she is my daughter.'
"'I could love her for her sister's sake, if nothing more,' said Mark with feeling; and then he bowed his head upon the marble mantel and looked steadily into the fire without a word.
"'Then if you desire,' continued my step-mother, with a little assumed hesitation, 'after reflection, you may speak to her father on the subject. Sarah will make a fine wife.'
"Think of me, Lizzie! Think of me, in that miniature dungeon, silently listening to the death sentence of my earthly happiness! Think of my weakness, in mutely listening to the lie that was, perhaps, to wreck my whole life! Think of me, and pity me!" Leah brushed away a tear, the first that had fallen from her stony eyes since the beginning of her story; and then she continued:
"If Mark heeded these last words of my step-mother, he gave no evidence of it, for he continued to stare blindly at the glowing grate, apparently oblivious of every surrounding object. At length he aroused, and said:
"'I must be going. Mrs. Mordecai, I bid you good night.'
"'Stay longer, I pray,' rejoined my step-mother; and he replied: