prejudiced his judgment more than is his wont.  He has gone now to Widow Langford, to hear her tale against Jefferies, and if this last base charge he has brought against Arthur be indeed proved against himself, it will be easy to convict him of other calumnies; for the truth of this once made evident, it is clear that his base machinations have been the secret engines of the prejudice against Myrvin, for which no clear foundation has ever yet been discovered.  You will not doubt your father’s earnestness in this proceeding, my Emmeline, and you know him too well to believe he would for one moment refrain from acknowledging to Mr. Myrvin the injustice he has done him, if indeed it prove unfounded.”

“And if his character be cleared from all stain—­if not a whisper taint his name, and his true excellence be known to all—­oh, may we not hope? mother, mother, you will not be inexorable; you will not, oh, you will not condemn your child to misery!” exclaimed Emmeline, in a tone of excitement, strongly contrasting with the hopelessness which had breathed in every word before; and, bursting from her mother’s detaining hold, she suddenly knelt before her, and clasped her robe in the wildness of her entreaty.  “You will not refuse to make us happy; you will not withhold your consent, on which alone depends the future happiness of your Emmeline.  You, who have been so good, so kind, so fond,—­oh, you will not sentence me to woe.  Mother, oh, speak to me.  I care not how many years I wait:  say, only say that, if his character be cleared of all they have dared to cast upon it, I shall one day he his.  Do not turn from me, mother.  Oh, bid me not despond; and yet and yet, because he is poor, oh, would you, can you condemn me to despair?”

“Emmeline, Emmeline, do not wring my heart by these cruel words,” replied Mrs. Hamilton, in a tone of such deep distress, that Emmeline’s imploring glance sunk before it, and feeling there was indeed no hope, her weakened frame shook with the effort to restrain the bursting tears.  “Do not ask me to promise this; do not give me the bitter pain of speaking that which you feel at this moment will only add to your unhappiness.  You yourself, by the words you have repeated, behold the utter impossibility of such an union.  Why, why then will you impose on me the painful task of repeating it?  Could I consent to part with you to one who has not even a settled home to give you, whose labours scarcely earn sufficient to maintain himself?  You know not all the evils of such an union, my sweet girl.  You are not fitted to cope with poverty or care, to bear with that passionate irritability and restlessness which characterise young Myrvin, even when weightier charges are removed.  And could we feel ourselves justified in exposing you to privations and sorrows, which our cooler judgment may perceive, though naturally concealed from the eye of affection?  Seldom, very seldom, are those marriages happy in which such an