let you, my mother for me, and I hope you will have hinted to her long
ago, that I am only playing truant. How is poor--poor Julian? he will
understand me, if you tell him I forgive him, and will never say one
word about our little tiff. And now dearest Emmy--"

[The remainder of this letter must, believe me, be as starry as before.]

* * * * *




CHAPTER XXII.

REVELATIONS.


GENERAL TRACY gave a long-drawn sigh: and tears--tears of true
affection--stood in those most fish-like eyes, as he mournfully said,
"Bless him, bless dear Charles, almost as much as you, my own sweet
Emmy. Heaven send it be true--for Heaven can work miracles. But without
a miracle, Emily, in sober sadness I declare it, you must forget--_your
brother Charles, my daughter_!"

Emily fell flat upon her face, so cold, so white, that he believed her
dead.

Oh! that he had never--never said that word: or better still, poor
father, that you had never kept the dreadful secret from them. The
adultery, indeed, was sin; but years of ill-concealings have multiplied