"No!" replied Agnes, with the most perfect intrepidity of countenance. "You must have met him in the Park."
"I did not perceive him, and it was as well," answered Sir Arthur with melancholy sternness. "The seldomer we meet the better. It is a disgrace to be in the room with Sir Patrick."
"Uncle Arthur! you are growing angry and personal," interrupted Marion, in a beseeching tone, while she shook his hand caressingly in her own. "That is the harshest thing you ever said of our brother!"
"May he never deserve more, or he shall have it," continued the Admiral, with angry vehemence, while his neckcloth seemed growing too tight for him. "Sir Patrick is, without meaning to flatter him, about the greatest scamp I know. His last step in the regiment was purchased, I am told, over the head of a young officer from whom he gained the money at play! but, Marion, my dear girl, I am not come to quarrel with you, the dearest niece in the world—nor with Agnes, though I could wish that she came sometimes to see me."
Sir Arthur held out his hand to both his nieces, and added, in a tone of hurried agitation, "If you had witnessed, Agnes, the many long years during which your father and I associated together on terms of more than brotherly confidence, you could not wonder that now, living in an empty world, the grave of all who started in life beside me, amidst old remembrances, vanished pleasures, faded health, and lost affections, I cling to whatever reminds me of him, and that nothing can make me cease to love you all—all without exception—even that disgraceful scoundrel your brother. I would close these eyes in death, only once to see him, the man his father's son should be; but I might live for ever if I wait till then!"
Marion was grieved and alarmed to perceive her uncle's increasing agitation, while he hastily turned away to hide it, but the breeze which had ruffled his mind soon passed away, and though his hand still shook with emotion, he added in a calmer tone of deep-rooted anxiety,
"I have been told this morning, that Sir Patrick intends to cut his stick, and take flight immediately to the continent, therefore I am here to ascertain, my dear girls, what is to become of you?"
"I scarcely know indeed!" replied Marion, in a tone of irresistible depression. "Patrick seems to have no settled plan. He did talk of hiring a lodging for us, and engaging some old lady for a chaperon."
"And for such a scheme, my dear Marion, where in all the wide world is he to get money—or even credit? Not in the name of Sir Patrick Dunbar!—a name that, in my brother's time, stood proudly forward as a warrant for everything honorable, soldier-like and generous!—a name, till now, never sullied by dishonor."
Sir Arthur's voice faltered, a hectic color burned on his cheek, he remained silent for several minutes, and then continued, after a strong effort to recover himself,