“It is true, Blanche. The doctors tell me I am dying; and I know it myself.”
“O father! dear father!” she exclaimed, springing forward from her seat, falling upon her knees beside the sofa, and covering his face with her tresses and tears.
“Do not weep, my child! However painful to think of it, these things must be. It is the fate of all to leave this world; and I could not hope to be exempted. It is but going to a better, where God Himself will be with us, and where we are told there is no more weeping. Come, child! compose yourself. Return to your seat, and listen; for I have something to say to you.”
Sobbingly she obeyed—sobbing as though her heart would break.
“When I’m gone,” he continued, after she had become a little calmer, “you, my daughter, will succeed to my estates. They are not of great value; for I regret to say there is a considerable mortgage upon them. Still, after all is paid off there will be a residue—sufficient for your maintenance in the position to which you have been accustomed.”
“Oh, father I do not speak of these things. It pains me!”
“But I must, Blanche; I must. It is necessary you should be made acquainted with them; and necessary, too, that I should know—”
What was it necessary he should know? He had paused, as if afraid to declare it.
“What, papa?” asked she, looking interrogatively in his face, at the same time that a blush, rising upon her cheek, told she half divined it.
“What should you know?”