Mrs. Deborah glanced through it.
"Too well!" said she. "I also have had a letter which explains it all. Child, your father is married again, and to Lady Throckmorton."
[CHAPTER XX.]
VISITORS.
"THAT is it!" said Mr. Cheriton, striking his hand on the table, while Amabel and I stood as if dumb. "She told me when I would not come to her card parties on Sunday, that she would send me a bull's head. * And to think of the hours that I have wasted, and worse than wasted in that woman's house—dishonoring my Master's livery. It is a judgment upon me, but this child—what has she done?"
* Alluding to the old Scottish and Northumbrian custom of placing a bull's head before guests, whose death was determined on.
"Hush, Walter, do not speak rashly, nor talk of judgments!" said Amabel, speaking quite calmly, though she was pale as death. "We will not talk of judgments, but of chastenings."
"Of persecutions, rather!" I added. "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake! If you had kept on flattering her, she would not have been your enemy."
"If I had never begun it, she could not have found occasion against me!" returned Mr. Cheriton. "My sin hath found me out."