“They are not factors. My daughter has sufficient confidence in my judgment to agree to my advice. She knows my attitude toward Miss Prall and she would not encourage or accept the attentions of her nephew.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Of course I’m sure of it! Dorcas is a sweet, obedient child, and she would not deceive her loving and beloved mother. Also, she knows the despicable and unworthy nature of Miss Prall, and she assumes, as I do, that Richard is of the same stamp.”
“Then you don’t know the young man? You only assume his character? Is that quite fair?”
“Fair enough for anybody belonging to the Prall family! They cannot expect fairness! They wouldn’t even appreciate it! Letitia Prall is a mean, low type of womanhood,—a deceitful, unjust, disloyal, contemptible snake in the grass!”
“That’s so,” chimed in Kate; “she’s proved all that over and over,—and more too! She has no notion of common decency toward her neighbors; she is a two-faced, backbiting, sneaky, tattletale!”
“But this doesn’t prove young Bates——”
“Yes, it does!” the detective’s argument was cut off; “she brought him up, and she taught him all her own evil principles, and her own way of thinking and talking——”
“But you scarcely know the man,——”
“That’s doesn’t matter! He’s the nephew of Letitia Prall,—and that’s enough for me! My daughter shall never speak to him,—never meet him,—and lest such a chance should occur accidentally, I am planning to move away.”