But they had talk’d in confidence, and talk’d
About Doretta. “Ah,” my father sigh’d;
“My plans for all of you are vain!—
“Why now?”
He cried, “in this my old age, now, too late
To be replaced again, should I have lost
My aims, my home, my hope, my happiness?—
And who has brought it on? has done such wrong
His deeds deserve it?—Here am I, myself,—
I loved you, loved you both, but plann’d your good: