BY
THE AUTHOR OF
“PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND,” &C.
NEW YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND.
1854.
MERKLAND;
OR,
S E L F - S A C R I F I C E.
CHAPTER I.
“BUT may not Mrs. Catherine’s visitor belong to another family? The name is not uncommon.”
“You will permit me to correct you, Miss Ross. The name is by no means a common one; and there was some very distant connexion, I remember, between the Aytouns and Mrs. Catherine. I have little doubt that this girl is his daughter.”
“Mother! mother!” exclaimed the first speaker, a young lady, whose face, naturally grave and composed, bore tokens of unusual agitation. “It is impossible; Mrs. Catherine, considerate and kind as she always is, could never be so cruel.”
“I am quite at a loss for your meaning, Anne.”
“To bring her here—to our neighborhood,” said Anne Ross, averting her eyes, and disregarding her step-mother’s interruption, “where we must meet her continually, where our name, which must be odious to her, will be ringing in her ears every day. I cannot believe it. Mrs. Catherine could not do anything so barbarous.”