“‘The voices of the dead are sounding in my ears, Emily! the tranquil dead! ’Tis said, my Emily,’ he paused for some moments, and his agitation was prodigious,—‘that stern was I to your sweet mother—’
“‘Oh, dear, dearest, best beloved by daughter, never!’ she cried vehemently, struggling to escape from his grasp, for beheld her rigidly while gazing at her with agonised eyes.
“‘And I now fearfully feel—I fear—that stern I was, as stern I have this day been to you. Forgive me, ye meek and blessed dead!‘—his quivering lips were, closed for a moment, as were his eyes. ‘Oh, Emily! she is looking at me through your eyes. Oh, how like!’ he remarked, as if speaking to himself. Lady Emily covered her eyes, and buried her head in his bosom. ‘Do you, my Emily, forgive me?’
“‘Oh, papa! no, no; what have I to forgive? Every thing have I to love! my own, sweet papa! Much I fear that I may have done what a daughter ought not to have done! I have grieved and wounded a father that tenderly loved me—’
“‘Ay, my child, I do,’ he whispered tremulously, gently drawing her slender form nearer to his heart. ‘Emily,’ said he, after a while, ‘go, get me that Testament which you placed before me; oh, go, dear child!’ She still hung her head, and made no motion of going. ‘Go, get it me; bring it to me!’
“She rose without a word, and brought it to him; and while he silently read the verse to which she had directed his attention, she sat beside him, her hands clasped together, and her eyes timidly fixed on the ground.
“‘It was in love, and not presumption, my Emily, that you laid these awful words before me!’
“‘Indeed, my papa, it was,’ said she, bursting into tears.
“He appeared about to speak to her, when words evidently failed him suddenly. At length—‘And when that sweet soul’—he paused, ‘this morning whispered in my ear, did she know of this that you had done?’ Lady Emily could not speak. She bowed her head in acquiescence, and sobbed convulsively. Her father was fearfully agitated. ‘Wretch that I am!—I am not worthy of either of you!’ Lady Emily flung her arms round him fondly, and kissed him. ‘I am yielding to great weakness, my love,’ said he, after a while, with somewhat more of composure. ‘Yet, never shall I—never can I—forget this morning! I have long felt, and feared, that I was not made to be loved: I have seen it written in people’s faces. Yet can I love!’
“‘I know you can! I know you do, my own dear papa! Do you not believe that I love you? that Agnes loves you?’