She made him no answer, lying before him on her
bed, still half-dressed, much as he had seen her lying on the floor
of his room last night.
'Louisa,' and his hand rested on her hair again, 'I have been
absent from here, my dear, a good deal of late; and though your
sister's training has been pursued according to - the system,' he
appeared to come to that word with great reluctance always, 'it has
necessarily been modified by daily associations begun, in her case,
at an early age. I ask you - ignorantly and humbly, my daughter -
for the better, do you think?'
'Father,' she replied, without stirring, 'if any harmony has been
awakened in her young breast that was mute in mine until it turned
to discord, let her thank Heaven for it, and go upon her happier
way, taking it as her greatest blessing that she has avoided my
way.'
'O my child, my child!' he said, in a forlorn manner, 'I am an
unhappy man to see you thus! What avails it to me that you do not
reproach me, if I so bitterly reproach myself!' He bent his head,
and spoke low to her.
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