low," muttered Ellieslaw; and then aloud, "With her own consent! For what do you take me, Mareschal, that you should suppose your interference necessary to protect my daughter against her father? Depend upon it, she has no pugnance to Sir Frederick Langley." "Or rather to be called Lady Langley? faith, like enough-there are many women might be of her mind; and I beg your pardon, but these sudden demands. and concessions alarmed me a little on her account." "It is only the suddenness of the proposal that embarrasses me," said Ellieslaw ; "but perhaps if she is found intractable, Sir Frederick will consider" "I will consider nothing, Mr Vere-. your daughter's hand to-night, or I depart, were it at midnight-there is my ultima tum." "I embrace it," said Ellieslaw; "and I will leave you to talk upon our military preparations, while I go to prepare my daughter for so sudden a change of condition." So saying, he left the company. CHAPTER XV. He brings Earl Osmond to receive my vows. MR VERE, whom long practice of dissimulation had enabled to model his very gait and footsteps to aid the purpose of deception, walked along the stone passage, and up the first flight of steps towards Miss Vere's apartment, with the alert, firm, and steady pace of one, who is bound, indeed, upon important business, but who entertains no doubt he can terminate his affairs satisfactorily. But when out of hearing of the gentlemen whom he had left, his step became so slow and irresolute, as to correspond with his doubts and his fears. At length he paused in an antichamber to collect his ideas, and form his plan of argument before approaching his daughter. "In what more hopeless and inextrica ble dilemma was ever an unfortunate man involved?"-Such was the tenor of his reflections." If we now fall to pieces by disunion, there can be little doubt that the government will take my life as the prime agitator of the insurrection. Or, grant I could stoop to save myself by a hasty submission, am I not, even in that case, utterly ruined? I have broken irreconcileably with Ratcliffe, and can have nothing to expect from that quarter but insult and persecution. I must wander forth an impoverished and dishonoured man, without even the means of sustaining life, far less wealth sufficient to counterbalance the infamy which my countrymen, both those whom I desert and those whom I join, will attach to the name of the political renegade. It is not to be thought of. And yet, what choice remains between this lot and the ignominious scaffold? Nothing can save me but reconciliation with these men; and, to accomplish this, I have promised to Langley that Isabella shall marry him ere midnight, and, to Mareschal, that she shall do so without compulsion. I have but one remedy betwixt me and ruin-her consent to take a suitor whom she dislikes, upon such short notice as would disgust her, even were he a favoured lover-But I must trust to the romantic generosity of her disposition; and let me paint the necessi ty of her obedience ever so strongly, I cannot overcharge its reality." Having finished this sad chain of reflections upon his perilous condition, he entered his daughter's apartment, with every nerve bent up to the support of the argument which he was about to sustain. Though a deceitful and ambitious man, he was not so devoid of natural affection but 3 |