Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-06.pdf/280

1870.] of sacrificing to him my only child."

"If he was so bad, why did he come here?"

"That is true. I did not expect to be rebuked by you, Emily, but I am open to that rebuke."

"Dear, dear papa, indeed I did not mean to rebuke you. But I cannot give him up."

"You must give him up."

"No, papa. If I did I should be false. I will not be false. You say that he is false. I do not know that, but I will not be false. Let me speak to you for one minute."

"It is of no use."

"But you will hear me, papa. You always hear me when I speak to you." She had left her chair now and was standing close to him—not leaning upon him, as was her wont in their pleasantest moments of fellowship, but ready to do so whenever she should find that his mood would permit it. "I will never marry him without your leave."

"Thanks, Emily: I know how sacred is a promise from you."

"But mine to him is equally sacred. I shall still be engaged to him. I told him how it would be. I said that as long as you or mamma lived I would never marry without your leave. Nor would I see him or write to him with out your knowledge. I told him so. But I told him also that I would always be true to him. I mean to keep my word."

"If you find him to be utterly worthless, you cannot be bound by such a promise."

"I hope it may not be so. I do not believe that it is so. I know him too well to think that he can be utterly worthless. But if he were, who should try to save him from worthlessness if not his nearest relatives? We try to reclaim the worst criminals, and some times we succeed. And he must be the head of the family. Remember that. Ought we not to try to reclaim him? He cannot be worse than the prodigal son."

"He is ten times worse. I cannot tell you what has been his life."

"Papa, I have often thought that in our rank of life Society is responsible for the kind of things which young men do. If he was at Goodwood—which I do not believe—so was Mr. Stackpoole. If he was betting, so was Mr. Stackpoole."

"But Mr. Stackpoole did not lie."

"I don't know that," she said, with a little toss of her head.

"Emily, you have no business either to say or to think it." "I care nothing for Mr. Stackpoole, whether he tells truth or not. He and his wife have made themselves very disagreeable: that is all. But as for George, he is what he is because other young men are allowed to be the same."

"You do not know the half of it."

"I know as much as I want to know, papa. Let one keep as clear of it as one can, it is impossible not to hear how young men live. And yet they are allowed to go everywhere, and are flattered and encouraged. I do not pretend that George is better than others. I wish he were. Oh how I wish it! But, such as he is, he belongs in a way to us, and we ought not to desert him. He belongs, I know, to me, and I will not desert him."

Sir Harry felt that there was no arguing with such a girl as this. Some time since he had told her that it was unfit that he should be brought into an argument with his own child, and there was nothing now for him but to fall back upon the security which that assertion gave him. He could not charge her with direct disobedience, because she had promised him that she would not do any of those things which, as a father, he had a right to forbid. He relied fully on her promise, and so far might feel himself to be safe. Nevertheless, he was very unhappy. Of what service would his child be to him or he to her if he were doomed to see her pining from day to day with an unpermitted love? It was the dearest wish of his heart to make her happy, as it was his fondest ambition to see her so placed in the world that she might be the