“She is weeping her life away! She is a Niobe, I tell you! A living fountain of tears!”
“She shall dry them and smile! See if I do not make her do it! Pooh! it is baby love, all this! Do you think a girl of her age, can feel any lasting love, or grief, or enduring passion of any sort at all? Pooh, pooh! I tell you if her lap-dog were killed, she would blubber and weep as much over its death, as she does over this other puppy’s fate! But, once for all, Mr. Clifton, I tell you I do not intend to be put off, or in any way annoyed by this girl’s grief and petulance. It is not well for you, her, or myself, that it should be indulged. Give her to me at once, according to your promise, and afterward I shall know how to deal with her—far better than you seem to know.”
“And you really wish to marry her in her present state, and take her home with you?”
“Yes! What objection? A wedding-party is not an indispensable accessory to the ceremony. A bridal journey from here to Richmond would be a very good substitute. Indeed, since the catastrophe of the last wedding-party at Clifton, I think the bridal journey would be in the best taste.”
“Umph! And you would marry her so, and so take her away?”
“Certainly.”
“Brute!”
“Sir?”
“Brute, I say! She would rather lie down with Frank in his bloody grave than marry you! And I would rather lay my child there—ALIVE—than give her to you! There, it is said! Now, I hope you understand me?”
Major Cabell brought his two fierce brown eyes to bear upon Mr. Old Gentleman, and gazed as if he thought him bereft of his senses. Then he spoke in a peculiarily thin, smooth, distinct voice—