Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/95

 distracted; it was not that she was afraid of her father, but she loved him so well, that her greatest terror was the thoughts of making him uneasy. It was impossible to conceal her folly long, and she could by no means bring herself to disclose it. The alteration of her behaviour, which from the most lively cheerfulness, grew into a settled melancholy, with her pale and dejected countenance, made the poor old man fear she was going into a consumption. He was always enquiring what was the matter with her; he perceived whenever he spoke to her on that subject, the tears rising in her eyes, and that she was hardly able to give him an answer. At last, by continual importunities, he got from her the whole truth. What words can describe his distress when he heard it! His thoughts were so confused, and his amazement so great, it was some time before he could utter his words. She stood pale and trembling before him, without power to speak, till at last she fainted away. He then catched her up in his arms, cried out for help, and the moment she began to recover, welcomed her to returning life, not in passion and reproaches, but in all the most endearing expressions the most tender love can suggest. He assured her, he never would upbraid her; that all his resentment should fall on the proper object, the villain who had imposed on her soft artless temper, to both their ruins. He wondered what could induce the wretch to so much baseness, since if he had asked her in marriage, as she was fond of him, there was nothing he would not have done to have made her easy. 'Nay,' said he, with tears bursting from his aged eyes, 'I should have had an additional pleasure in contributing to the happiness of that man who hath now so barbarously destroyed all the comfort I proposed in my decline of life, and hath undone me, and my poor only girl.'