CHAPTER I.
THE DEATH-BED OF JOHN VERNON .-- HIS DYING WORDS .-- DESCRIPTION OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE HEROINE .-- THE OATH.
"Is the night calm, Constance ?" "Beautiful! the moon is up." "Open the shutters wider, there.

It _is_ a beautiful night.

How beautiful! Come hither, my child." The rich moonlight that now shone through the windows streamed on little that it could invest with poetical attraction.

The room was small, though not squalid in its character and appliances.

The bed-curtains, of a dull chintz, were drawn back, and showed the form of a man, past middle age, propped by pillows, and bearing on his countenance the marks of approaching death.