of a good stock. I knew his father before him. I have watched him closely for the last five years. He will take care of her. He will make her a good husband. And I--shall be able to die--in peace. But it must be done--immediately--for he is going--to India." The General spoke in a very feeble tone, and with frequent pauses. "And do you wish your daughter to go with him? She is too young to be exposed to the dangers of Indian life." This idea seemed to strike the General very forcibly. For some minutes he did not answer, and it was with difficulty that he could collect his thoughts. At last he answered, slowly: "That is true--but she need not accompany him. Let her stay with me--till all is over--then she can go--to Chetwynde. It will be her natural home. She will find in my old friend a second father. She can remain with him--till her husband returns." A long pause followed. "Besides," he resumed, in a fainter voice, "there are other things. I can not explain--they are private--they concern the affairs of others. But if Zillah were to refuse to marry him--she would lose one-half of her fortune. So you can understand my anxiety. She has not a relative in the world--to whom I could leave her." Here the General stopped, utterly exhausted by the fatigue of speaking so much. As for the doctor, he sat for a time involved in deep thought. Zillah stood there pale and agitated, looking now at her father and now at the doctor, while a new and deeper anguish came over her heart. After a while he rose and quietly motioned to Zillah to follow him to the adjoining room. "My dear child," said he, kindly, when they had arrived there, "your father is excited, but yet is quite sane. His plan seems to be one which he has been cherishing for years; and he has so thoroughly set his heart upon it that it now is evidently his sole idea. I do not see what else can be done than to comply with his wishes." "What!" cried Zillah, aghast. "To refuse," said the doctor, "might be fatal. It would throw him into a paroxysm." "Oh, doctor!" moaned Zillah. "What do you mean? You can not be in earnest. What--to do such a thing when darling papa is--is dying!" Sobs choked her utterance. She buried her face in her hands and sank into a chair. "He is not yet so bad," said the doctor, earnestly, "but he is certainly in a critical state; and unless it is absolutely impossible--unless it is too abhorrent to think of--unless any calamity is better than this--I would advise you to try and think if you can not bring yourself to--to indulge his wish, wild as it may seem to you. There, my dear, I am deeply sorry for you; but I am honest, and say what I think." For a long time Zillah sat in silence, struggling with her emotions. The doctor's words impressed her deeply; but the thing which he advised was horrible to her--abhorrent beyond words. But then there was her father lying so near to death--whom, perhaps, her self-sacrifice might save, and whom certainly her selfishness would destroy. She could not hesitate. It was a bitter decision, but she made it. She rose to her feet paler than ever, but quite calm. "Doctor," said she, "I have decided. It is horrible beyond words; but I will do it, or any thing, for his sake. I would die to save him; and this is something worse than death." She was calm and cold; her voice seemed unnatural; her eyes were tearless. "It seems very hard," she murmured, after a pause; "I never saw Captain Molyneux but once, and I was only ten years old." "How old are you now?" asked the doctor, who knew not what to say to this poor stricken heart. "Fifteen." "Poor child!" said he, compassionately; "the trials of life are coming upon you early; but," he added, with a desperate effort at condolence, "do not be so despairing; whatever may be the result, you are, after all, in the path of duty; and that is the safest and the best for us all in the end, however hard it may seem to be in the present." Just then the General's voice interrupted his little homily, sounding querulously and impatiently: "Zillah! Zillah!" She sprang to his bedside: "Here I am, dear papa." "Will you do as I wish?" he asked, abruptly. "Yes," said Zillah, with an effort at firmness which cost her dear. Saying this, she kissed him; and the beam of pleasure which at this word lighted up the wan face of the sick man touched Zillah to the heart. She felt that, come what might, she had received her reward. "My sweetest, dutiful child," said the General, tenderly; "you have made me happy, my darling. Now get your desk and write for him at once. You must not lose time, my child." This unremitting pressure upon her gave Zillah a new struggle, but the General exhibited such feverish impatience that she dared not resist. So she went to a Davenport which stood in the corner of the room, and saying, quietly, "I will write here, papa," she seated herself, with her back toward him. "Are you ready?" he asked. "Yes, papa." The General then began to dictate to her what she was to write. It was as follows: "MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,--I think it will cause you some grief to hear that our long friendship is about to be broken up. My days, I fear, are numbered." Zillah stifled the sobs that choked her, and wrote bravely on: "You know the sorrow which has blighted my life; and I feel that I could go joyfully to my beloved, my deeply mourned wife, if I could feel that I was leaving my child--her child and mine--happily provided for. For this purpose I should like Guy, before he leaves for India, to fulfill his promise, and, by marrying my daughter, give me the comfort of knowing that I leave her in the hands of a husband upon whom I can confidently rely." But at this point Zillah's self-control gave way. She broke down utterly, and, bowing her head in her hands on the desk, burst forth into a passion of sobs.
The poor child could surely not be blamed. Her nature was impassioned and undisciplined; from her birth every whim had been humored, and her wildest fancies indulged to the utmost; and now suddenly upon this petted idol, who had been always guarded so carefully from the slightest disappointment, there descended the storm-cloud of sorrow, and that too not gradually, but almost in one moment. Her love for her father was a passion; and he was to be taken from her, and she was to be given into the hands of entire strangers. The apparent calmness, almost indifference, with which her father made these arrangements, cut her to the quick. She was too young to know how much of this eagerness was attributable entirely to disease. He appeared to her as thinking of only his own wishes, and showing no consideration whatever for her own crushing grief, and no appreciation of the strength of her affection for him. The self-sacrificing father had changed into the most selfish of men, who had not one thought for her feelings.
"Oh, Zillah!" cried her father, reproachfully, in answer to her last outburst of grief. She rose and went to his bedside, struggling violently with her emotion.
"I can not write this, dearest papa," she said, in a tremulous voice; "I have promised to do just as you wish, and I will keep my word; but indeed, indeed, I can not write this letter. Will it not do as well if Hilda writes it?"
"To be sure, to be sure," said the General, who took no notice of her distress. "Hilda will do it, and then my little girl can come and sit beside her father."
Hilda was accordingly sent for. She glided noiselessly in and took her place at the Davenport; while Zillah, sitting by her father, buried her head in the bed-clothes, his feeble hands the while playing nervously with the long, straggling locks of her hair which scattered themselves over the bed. The letter was soon finished, for it contained little more than what has already been given, except the reiterated injunction that Guy should make all haste to reach Pomeroy Court. It was then sent off to the post, to the great delight of the General, whose mind became more wandering, now that the strain which had been placed upon it was removed.
"Now," said he, in a flighty way, and with an eager impetuosity which showed that his delirium had increased, "we must think of the wedding--my darling must have a grand wedding," he murmured to himself in a low whisper.
A shudder ran through Zillah as she sat by his side, but not a sound escaped her. She looked up in terror. Had every ray of reason left her father? Was she to sacrifice herself on so hideous an altar without even the satisfaction of knowing that she had given him pleasure? Then she thought that perhaps her father was living again in the past, and confounding this fearful thing which he was planning for her with his own joyous wedding. Tears flowed afresh, but silently, at the thought of the contrast. Often had her ayah delighted her childish imagination by her glowing descriptions of the magnificence of that wedding, where the festivities had lasted for a week, and the arrangements were all made on a scale of Oriental splendor. She loved to descant upon the beauty of the bride, the richness of her attire, the magnificence of her jewels, the grandeur of the guests, the splendor of the whole display--until Zillah had insensibly learned to think all this the necessary adjuncts of a wedding, and had built many a day-dream about the pomp which should surround hers, when the glorious knight whom the fairy tales had led her to expect should come to claim her hand. But at this time it was not the sacrifice of all this that was
