THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER,

A Tale, in Prose.

By MRS. OPIE.

NINTH EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, & GREEN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1824.

"——she saw that he had drawn the shape of a coffin and was then writing on the lid the name of Agnes."——

DEDICATION.

TO

Dr. ALDERSON of NORWICH.

DEAR SIR,

In dedicating this Publication to you, I follow in some measure the example of those nations who devoted to their gods the first fruits of the genial seasons which they derived from their bounty.

To you I owe whatever of cultivation my mind has received; and the first fruits of that mind to you I dedicate.

Besides, having endeavoured in "The Father and Daughter" to exhibit a picture of the most perfect parental affection, to whom could I dedicate it with so much propriety as to you, since, in describing a good father, I had only to delineate my own?

Allow me to add, full of gratitude for years of tenderness and indulgence on your part, but feebly repaid even by every possible sentiment of filial regard on mine, that the satisfaction I shall experience if my Publication be favourably received by the world, will not proceed from the mere gratification of my self-love, but from the conviction I shall feel that my success as an Author is productive of pleasure to you.

AMELIA OPIE.

Berners Street,
1800.

THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

BY MRS. OPIE.

TO THE READER.

It is not without considerable apprehension that I offer myself as an avowed Author at the bar of public opinion,—and that apprehension is heightened by its being the general custom to give indiscriminately the name of Novel to every thing in Prose that comes in the shape of a Story, however simple it be in its construction, and humble in its pretensions.

By this means, the following Publication is in danger of being tried by a standard according to which it was never intended to be made, and to be criticized for wanting those merits which it was never meant to possess.

I therefore beg leave to say, in justice to myself, that I know "The Father and Daughter" is wholly devoid of those attempts at strong character, comic situation, bustle, and variety of incident, which constitute a Novel, and that its highest pretensions are, to be a simple, moral Tale.

THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

A TALE.

The night was dark,—the wind blew keenly over the frozen and rugged heath, when Agnes, pressing her moaning child to her bosom, was travelling on foot to her father's habitation.

"Would to God I had never left it!" she exclaimed, as home and all its enjoyments rose in fancy to her view:—and I think my readers will be ready to join in the exclamation, when they hear the poor wanderer's history.

Agnes Fitzhenry was the only child of a respectable merchant in a country town, who, having lost his wife when his daughter was very young, resolved for her sake to form no second connection. To the steady, manly affection of a father, Fitzhenry joined the fond anxieties and endearing attentions of a mother; and his parental care was amply repaid by the love and amiable qualities of Agnes. He was not rich; yet the profits of his trade were such as to enable him to bestow every possible expense on his daughter's education, and to lay up a considerable sum yearly for her future support: whatever else he could spare from his own absolute wants, he expended in procuring comforts and pleasures for her.—"What an excellent father that man is!" was the frequent exclamation among his acquaintance—"And what an excellent child he has! well may he be proud of her!" was as commonly the answer to it.

Nor was this to be wondered at:—Agnes united to extreme beauty of face and person every accomplishment that belongs to her own sex, and a great degree of that strength of mind and capacity for acquiring knowledge supposed to belong exclusively to the other.

For this combination of rare qualities Agnes was admired;—for her sweetness of temper, her willingness to oblige, her seeming unconsciousness of her own merits, and her readiness to commend the merits of others,—for these still rarer qualities, Agnes was beloved: and she seldom formed an acquaintance without at the same time securing a friend.

Her father thought he loved her (and perhaps he was right) as never father loved a child before; and Agnes thought she loved him as child never before loved father.—"I will not marry, but live single for my father's sake," she often said;—but she altered her determination when her heart, hitherto unmoved by the addresses of the other sex, was assailed by an officer in the guards who came to recruit in the town in which she resided.

Clifford, as I shall call him, had not only a fine figure and graceful address, but talents rare and various, and powers of conversation so fascinating, that the woman he had betrayed forgot her wrongs in his presence, and the creditor, who came to dun him for the payment of debts already incurred, went away eager to oblige him by letting him incur still more.

Fatal perversion of uncommon abilities! This man, who might have taught a nation to look up to him as its best pride in prosperity and its best hope in adversity, made no other use of his talents than to betray the unwary of both sexes, the one to shame, the other to pecuniary difficulties; and he whose mind was capacious enough to have imagined schemes to aggrandize his native country, the slave of sordid selfishness, never looked beyond his own temporary and petty benefit, and sat down contented with the achievements of the day, if he had overreached a credulous tradesman, or beguiled an unsuspecting woman.

But, to accomplish even these paltry triumphs, great knowledge of the human heart was necessary,—a power of discovering the prevailing foible in those on whom he had designs, and of converting their imagined security into their real danger. He soon discovered that Agnes, who was rather inclined to doubt her possessing in an uncommon degree the good qualities which she really had, valued herself, with not unusual blindness, on those which she had not. She thought herself endowed with great power to read the characters of those with whom she associated,