His skill in
military affairs soon raised him to riches and eminence.
When he returned to Britain, his first
enquiries were after the family of Mon
ada. His
fame, his wealth, and the late conviction that his
daughter never would marry any but him who had
her first love, induced the old man to give that
encouragement to General Witherington, which
he had always denied to the poor and outlawed
Major Tresham; and the lovers, after having been
fourteen years separated, were at length united in
wedlock.
General Witherington eagerly concurred in the
earnest wish of his father-in-law, that every remembrance
of former events should be buried, by
leaving the fruit of the early and unhappy intrigue
suitably provided for, but in a distant and obscure
situation. Zilia thought far otherwise. Her heart
longed, with a mother's longing, towards the object
of her first maternal tenderness, but she dared
not place herself in opposition at once to the will
of her father, and the decision of her husband.
The former, his religious prejudices much effaced
by his long residence in England, had given consent
that she should conform to the established
religion of her husband and her country,---the
latter, haughty as we have described him, made it
his pride to introduce the beautiful convert among
his high-born kindred.
Pages:
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598