“There! see for yourself.—Poetry!” He uttered the word with contempt inexpressible.
She took the verses from his hand and read them. Even with her father standing there, watching her like an inquisitor, she could not help the tears coming in her eyes as she read.
“There is no such thing here, papa,” she said. “They are only verses—bidding me good-bye.”
“And what right has any such fellow to bid my daughter good-bye? Explain that to me, if you please. Of course I have been for many years aware of your love of low company, but I had hoped as you grew older you would learn manners: modesty would have been too much to look for.—If you had nothing to be ashamed of, why did you not tell me of the unpleasant affair? Is not your father your best friend?”
“Why should I make both him and you uncomfortable, papa—when there was not going to be anything more of it?”
“Why then do you go hankering after him still, and refusing Mr. Duff? It is true he is not exactly a gentleman by birth, but he is such by education, by manners, by position, by influence.”
“Papa, I have already told Mr. Duff, as plainly as I could without being rude, that I would never let him talk to me so. What lady would refuse Donal Grant and listen to him!”
“You are a bold, insolent hussey!” cried her father in fresh rage and leaving the room, rejoined Fergus.
They sat silent both for a while—then the preacher spoke.
“Other communications may have since reached her from the same quarter,” he said.