"My father! She never speaks of him! I have been early taught to shun
all allusion to his memory. My father!--it is probable; yes, it may have
been my father; whom else could she have loved so fondly?"

There was a long silence; Evelyn was the first to break it.

"I have heard from my mother to-day, Ernest; her letter alarms me,--I
scarce know why!"

"Ah! and how--"

"It is hurried and incoherent,--almost wild: she says she has learned
some intelligence that has unsettled and unstrung her mind; she has
requested me to inquire if any one I am acquainted with has heard of, or
met abroad, some person of the name of Butler. You start!--have you
known one of that name?"

"I!--did your mother never allude to that name before?"

"Never!--and yet, once I remember--"

"What?"

That I was reading an account in the papers of the sudden death of some
Mr. Butler; and her agitation made a powerful and strange impression upon
me,--in fact, she fainted, and seemed almost delirious when she
recovered; she would not rest till I had completed the account, and when
I came to the particulars of his age, etc. (he was old, I think) she
clasped her hands, and wept; but they seemed tears of joy. The name is
so common--whom of that name have you known?"