"You have been occasionally indisposed, Dutton, but never apoplectic; and we have always thought a little sleep would restore you; as, indeed, it always has."
"What business had you to think? Surgeons think, and medical men, and it was your duty to send for the nearest professional man, to look after one you're bound both to honour and obey. You are your own mistress, Martha, I do suppose, in a certain degree; and what can't be cured must be endured; but Mildred is my child; and I'll have her respect and love, if I break both your hearts in order to get at them."
"A pious daughter always respects her parent, Dutton," said the wife, trembling from head to foot; "but love must come willingly, or, it will not come at all."
"We'll see as to that, Mrs. Martha Dutton; we'll see as to that. Come hither, Mildred; I have a word to say to you, which may as well be said at once."
Mildred, trembling like her mother, drew near; but with a feeling of filial piety, that no harshness could entirely smother, she felt anxious to prevent the father from further exposing himself, in the presence of Admiral Bluewater. With this view, then, and with this view only, she summoned firmness enough to speak.
"Father," she said, "had we not better defer our family matters, until we are alone?"
Under ordinary circumstances, Bluewater would not have waited for so palpable a hint, for he would have retired on the first appearance of any thing so disagreeable as a misunderstanding between man and wife. But, an ungovernable interest in the lovely girl, who stood trembling at her father's knee, caused him to forget his habitual delicacy of feeling, and to overlook what might perhaps be termed almost a law of society. Instead of moving, therefore, as Mildred had both hoped and expected, he remained motionless in his seat. Dutton's mind was too obtuse to comprehend his daughter's allusions, in the absence, of ocular evidence of a stranger's presence, and his wrath was too much excited to permit him to think much of any thing but his own causes of indignation.
"Stand more in front of me, Mildred," he answered, angrily. "More before my face, as becomes one who don't know her duty to her parent, and needs be taught it."
"Oh! Dutton," exclaimed the afflicted wife; "do not—do not—accuse Mildred of being undutiful! You know not what you say—know not her obliga—you cannot know her heart, or you would not use these cruel imputations!"
"Silence, Mrs. Martha Dutton—my business is not with you, at present, but with this young lady, to whom, I hope, I may presume to speak a little plainly, as she is my own child. Silence, then, Mrs. Martha Dutton. If my memory is not treacherous, you once stood up before God's altar with me, and there vow'd to love, honour, and obey. Yes, that was the word; obey, Mrs. Martha Dutton."