"Confounded humbugs!" was the rejoinder, and a muttered something about "priest-craft" and "blind leaders of the blind" finished the sentence so charitably begun.
Another pause was ended by the daughter. "Miss Ross' father was an early friend of yours,—a college chum,—was he not?"
"He was,—and a clever fellow into the bargain;" said her father, with a touch of feeling in his tone. "At his death, he left to me the management of his child's property,—(a snug operation I have made of it, too!) In the event of the mother's decease, I was appointed sole guardian, an office for which, it must be said, I have little partiality. If Mrs. Ross had given her up to me ten years ago, I might have made something of her; but she said a mother was the proper guide for her daughter. Women are wonderfully self-sufficient,—always undertaking what it would puzzle sensible men to do, and perfectly satisfied with the style in which it is done." If there was any meaning in the severity of this remark, the face and voice of the listener betrayed no consciousness.
"How old is Miss Ross?"
"What is your age?" and seeing her hesitate—"What does the Family Bible say? I want no school-girl airs."
"I am fifteen sir," raising her eyes coolly to his.
"And she is two months younger. A pretty time I shall have for six years; unless she takes it into her head to marry before she is of age. Very probably she will; for her fortune, although small, is large enough to attract some fool, too lazy to work, and too ambitious to remain poor."
"Is she pretty?"
"How should I know? I only saw her at her mother's funeral, where she got up quite a scene—fainting and such like. I came away the next day, and she was still too unwell to leave her room, they said."
"Romantically inclined! Pity she should be doomed to uncongenial associations!"