The features of their union might not be changed altogether by a revelation, but it would be a shock to her.
Consequently, Harriet tenderly rebuked Caroline, for her outcry at the breakfast-table; and Caroline, the elder sister, who had not since marriage grown in so free an air, excused herself humbly, and the two were weeping when the Countess joined them and related what she had just undergone.
Hearing of Caroline's misdemeanour, however, Louisa's eyes rolled aloft in a paroxysm of tribulation.

It was nothing to Caroline; it was comparatively nothing to Harriet; but the Count knew not Louisa had a father: believed that her parents had long ago been wiped out.

And the Count was by nature inquisitive: and if he once cherished a suspicion he was restless; he was pointed in his inquiries: he was pertinacious in following out a clue: there never would be peace with him! And then, as they were secure in their privacy, Louisa cried aloud for her father, her beloved father! Harriet wept silently.

Caroline alone expressed regret that she had not set eyes on him from the day she became a wife.
'How could we, dear ?' the Countess pathetically asked, under drowning lids.
'Papa did not wish it,' sobbed Mrs.Andrew.
'I never shall forgive myself!' said the wife of the Major, drying her cheeks.

Perhaps it was not herself whom she felt she never could forgive.
Ah! the man their father was! Incomparable Melchisedec! he might well be called.