"Hey? What is this?" asked the Judge, in a tone that admitted of no trifling in the answer.
"Nothing—that is—Emily was talking of—" began the abashed wife, with a stammer.
"Of—I know," said the father, who had heard quite enough of his daughter's words to know without asking, and who was more behind the curtain than his wife, in some other respects. "I heard what this school-girl muttered. She cannot marry the man whom I intend she shall marry, and she has taken this opportunity, when she supposed I was absent, to acquaint you with her determination."
"Not determination," said the mother, willing to smooth affairs as much as possible—"say wish."
"No, mother, determination!" said the young girl, springing to her feet with an energy which was really not an ordinary part of her nature,—under the impression that now, if ever, was the time to give utterance to her true sentiments. "Father used the right word—determination! I cannot marry Boad Bancker, and I won't! There you have it!"
There was nothing classic or even romantic in the young lady's mode of expression, or the nickname which she bestowed upon her would-be lover; but they were at least natural, which is something gained in this world of pretences and deceptions.
"You won't? and why, I should like to know?" broke in the Judge, for the moment surprised out of the violence that might have resulted, by the very audacity of the declaration.
"Because he is hateful, and ugly, and I do not like him, and—" answered Miss Emily, with a charming return to the system of the school-girl which she had just been called by her father.
"Silence!" thundered Judge Owen, who had recovered from the blow and thought that he had a refractory juryman or an insolent attorney to put down. "Silence! I have had enough of this. John Boadley Bancker is the man I have selected for your husband. He belongs to an excellent family, has wealth enough to keep a wife in comfort and even luxury, and has lately proved himself a true patriot by springing up at the call of the President—" (Judge Owen had by this time forgotten his indignation, and fancied himself for the moment addressing an immense assemblage at Union Square or in the Park)—"by springing up at the call of the President, girding on his—"
"—Shoulder-straps!" put in Miss Emily, who had recovered from her agitation and began to be mischievous the moment her father began to be didactic and ponderous. Whether he heard the interpolation or not, is somewhat doubtful.