You must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope.

I will maintain the vantage ground on which I stand,--first friend, first lover, and even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it." "Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant.

"You know he can never be any thing to me.

You know my immeasurable obligations to his mother.

His name shall be sacred from levity." "It is.