"Shut up, you ruin!" gasped grandfather. "Stop it, for the love of the Lord. D' you think I want the whole river to know? It's like a cargo of corncrakes. You're enough to frighten a steam launch!"
I stopped then and cried at his cruelty.
"Don't be harsh, grandfather--don't be brutal to your only grandchild," I sobbed.
"Behave yourself, then. When you take to singing in public it's about time I spoke out."
We got home somehow, and never returned to the subject. He did not desire to be reminded of his poetry, and therefore was careful not to allude to my passing indisposition.
But I never hesitated to speak on the subject of poor Phyllis. I implored him, by everything that was sacred, to abandon this undertaking. Each day throughout that week I attacked him, until in sheer despair and rage he would take his hat and fly from the house. But nothing availed--grandfather would not alter his intention; and I therefore determined to forbid the banns. The thought was naturally very distasteful to me, but I could see no alternative. Grandpapa, never dreaming of such a thing, rowed up the river as usual on the following Sunday, and I went to St. Jude's.
In due course the minister published the banns of marriage "between Daniel Dolphin, of this parish, bachelor, and Phyllis Rose, of"--somewhere else, I forget the name of the place--"spinster." It was for the third and last time of asking.
I got up, grasped the pew in front of me, and exclaimed:
"This--this mustn't go on. I forbid the banns!"
"Which?" asked the minister. He had read out a string of names.