“There, there; you can weep when I am gone.  I shan’t say very much to you at present, Rhoda, and only wish you to attend to me for one minute.  Listen, Rhoda; the lady whom you have been in the habit (here he slightly averted his eyes) of calling Mademoiselle de Barras, is no longer so; she is married; she is my wife, and consequently you will treat her with the respect due to”—­he would have said “a mother,” but could not, and supplied the phrase by adding, “to that relation.”

Rhoda was unable to speak, but almost unconsciously bowed her head in token of attention and submission, and her father pressed her hand more kindly, as he continued:—­

“I have always found you a dutiful and obedient child, Rhoda, and expected no other conduct from you.  Mrs. Marston will treat you with proper kindness and consideration, and desires me to say that you can, whenever you please, keep strictly to yourself, and need not, unless you feel so disposed, attend the regular meals of the family.  This privilege may suit your present depressed spirits, and you must not scruple to use it.”

After a few words more, Marston withdrew, leaving his daughter to her reflections, and bleak and bitter enough they were.

Some weeks passed away, and perhaps we shall best consult our readers’ ease by substituting for the formal precision of narrative, a few extracts from the letters which Rhoda wrote to her brother, still at Cambridge.  These will convey her own impressions respecting the scenes and personages among whom she was now to move.

“The house and place are much neglected, and the former in some parts suffered almost to go to decay.  The windows broken in the last storm, nearly eight months ago, they tell me, are still unmended, and the roof, too, unrepaired.  The pretty garden, near the well, among the lime trees, that our darling mother was so fond of, is all but obliterated with weeds and grass, and since my first visit I have not had heart to go near it again.  All the old servants are gone; new faces everywhere.

“I have been obliged several times, through fear of offending my father, to join the party in the drawing room.  You may conceive what I felt at seeing mademoiselle in the place once filled by our dear mamma, I was so choked with sorrow, bitterness, and indignation, and my heart so palpitated, that I could not speak, and I believe they thought I was going to faint.  Mademoiselle looked very angry, but my father pretending to show me, heaven knows what, from the window, led me to it, and the air revived me a little.  Mademoiselle (for I cannot call her by her new name) is altered a good deal—­more, however, in the character than in the contour of her face and figure.  Certainly, however, she has grown a good deal fuller, and her color is higher; and whether it is fancy or not, I cannot say, but certainly to me it seems that the expression of her face has acquired something habitually lowering and malicious, and which,