Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/107

 be his daughter and heiress. Although honoured with the name, she is not blessed with the love of her father; his only care is to provide a suitable husband for his noble and wealthy daughter. Francesca learns the bitter truth that Lord Avonleigh is Evelyn's declared enemy; yet she shrinks not from avowing her attachment to her incensed parent, who is urging her to accept the hand of one of Charles the Second’s courtiers. "It matters not!" exclaimed Lord Avonleigh, when he heard of her engagement, "for never shall Robert Evelyn wed daughter of mine, unless he take her pennyless and discarded. Why, your cavalier is a rebel, an exile, whose property is confiscated, and for whose neck the gibbet stands prepared!" "And for whose sake I will bear an unchanged name, and an unaltered heart to my grave;" is the fearless and true-hearted reply of Francesca. No sooner does Evelyn hear, from his brother’s companion, of Francesca, than he hastens to England. They meet in the New Forest; he tells her that he is no longer free, wealthy and noble; he represents all she must risk and endure if she marry an exile. But what woman ever shrunk from suffering for another's sake? The wealth of the heart's love, sympathy and confidence, is deemed a sufficient aegis against outward trial; besides, Francesca felt it now her highest duty to cling to him who had loved her as a lonely orphan. Before she knew that she had a father living, she had pledged her faith to Evelyn; this she explicitly states in her farewell letter to Lord Avonleigh: "I feel that I owe to Robert Evelyn a dearer debt than to yourself; as he would have shared his prosperity with me, so will I share his adversity with him. I believed myself to be a poor and friendless orphan when I pledged that faith