Do not tell me any more to-night, and forget what I told you." Mrs.Weston hardly seemed to hear her.

After a pause of a few moments, she proceeded: "It was so, indeed.

I, his only child, was the cause of his death; I, his cherished and beloved daughter, committed an act that broke his heart, and laid the foundation of sorrows for me, that I fear will only end with my life.
"Alice, I read not long since of a son, the veriest wretch on earth; he was unwilling to grant his poor aged father a subsistence from his abundance; he embittered the failing years of his life by unkindness and reproaches.
One day, after an altercation between them, the son seized his father by his thin, white hair, and dragged him to the corner of the street.

Here, the father in trembling tones implored his pity.

'Stop, oh! stop, my son' he said, 'for I dragged my father here, God has punished me in your sin.' "Alice, can you not see the hand of a just God in this retribution, and do you wonder, when you made this acknowledgment to me to-night, the agony of death overcame me?
I thought, as I felt His hand laid heavily upon me, my punishment was greater than I could bear; my sin would be punished in your sorrow; and naught but sorrow would be your portion as the wife of Walter Lee.
"Do not interrupt me, it is time we were asleep, but I shall soon have finished what I have to say.