“Yes; but, Alice, if papa died, I should have to reproach myself with his death; and that consideration would drive me distracted or kill me.  I am beginning to think that obedience to the will of a parent is, under all circumstances, the first duty of a child.  A parent knows better what is for our good than we can be supposed to do.  At all events, whatever exceptions there may be to this rule, I care not.  It is enough, and too much, for me to reflect that my conduct has been the cause of papa’s illness.  His great object in life was to promote my happiness.  Now this was affection for me.  I grant he may have been mistaken, but still it was affection; and consequently I cannot help admitting that even his harshness, and certainly all that he suffered through the very violence of his own passions, arose from the same source—­affection for me.”

“Ah,” replied Alley, “it’s aisy seen that your heart is softened now; but in truth, miss, it was quare affection that would make his daughter miserable, bekase he wanted her to become a great lady.  If he was a kind and raisonable father, he would not force you to be unhappy.  An affectionate father would give up the point rather than make you so; but no; the truth is simply this, he wanted to gratify himself more than he did you, or why would he act as he did?”

“Alice,” replied Lucy, “remember that I will not suffer you to speak of my father with disrespect.  You forget yourself, girl, and learn from me now, that in order to restore him to peace of mind and health, in order to rescue him from death, and oh,” she exclaimed involuntarily, “above all things from a death, for which, perhaps, he is not sufficiently prepared—­as who, alas, is for that terrible event!—­yes in order to do this, I am ready to yield an implicit obedience to his wishes:  and I pray heaven that this act on my part may not be too late to restore him to his health, and relieve his mind from the load of care which presses it down upon my account.”

“Good Lord, Miss Gourlay,” exclaimed poor Alley, absolutely frightened by the determined and vehement spirit in which these words were uttered, “surely you wouldn’t think of makin’ a saickerfice of yourself that way?”

“That may be the word, Alice, or it may not; but if it be a sacrifice, and if the sacrifice is necessary, it shall be made—­I shall make it.  My disobedience shall never break my father’s heart.”

“I don’t wish to speak disrespectfully of your father, miss; but I think he’s an ambitious man.”

“And perhaps the ambition which he feels is a virtue, and one in which I am deficient.  You and I, Alice, know but little of life and the maxims by which its great social principles are regulated.”