lasting displeasure, to hold intercourse with any part of your family."
"But, my dear sister," expostulated De Brooke, "can your heart accede to such a prohibition? Would it not be more amiable in you to seek to soften the harshness of him who enjoined it,—I will not call him father?" "Can it be possible, brother," returned she, "you should so far forget yourself as to suppose your sway over me should supersede that of my father, and prevail upon me to act in direct contradiction to his commands? No, believe me, I never shall!" "Which is at once to tell me," resumed De Brooke with impetuosity, "that you mean to spurn at us, and crush beneath your feet every rising hope and fair prospect of my children."
"If such," continued she, "is the construction you put upon my actions, I cannot alter them; you are at liberty to think as injuriously of me as you please. My father is prejudiced against your wife; he is resolved never to acknowledge her as a part of his family; it is therefore certainly not for me to do so. As far as your daughters are concerned they claim my pity; and I should be glad to have it in my power of being serviceable to them."
"My daughters," ejaculated the General, "are
