He sat beside his daughter, with her thin fingers clasped in his, and spoke to her on every consolatory topic that suggested itself.

This discourse, however, insensibly took a serious turn, and the grocer became fully convinced that his daughter was not merely reconciled to the early death that to all appearance awaited her, but wishful for it.

He found, too, to his inexpressible grief, that the sense of the Earl of Rochester's treachery, combined with her own indiscretion, and the consequences that might have attended it, had sunk deep in her heart, and produced the present sad result.
Mrs.Bloundel, it will scarcely be supposed, could support herself so well as her husband, but when any paroxysm of grief approached she rushed out of the room, and gave vent to her affliction alone.

All the rest of the family were present, and were equally distressed.

But what most strongly affected Amabel was a simple, natural remark of little Christiana, who, fixing her tearful gaze on her, entreated her "to come back soon." Weak as she was, Amabel took the child upon her knee, and said to her, "I am going a long journey, Christiana, and, perhaps may never come back.