Touched by her sorrow, he said generously:
“Are you going to let that old man’s prejudice stand between you and your life’s happiness? Throw his memory to the winds and take Ludington back if you cannot be happy without him.”
“Do not tempt me to do wrong, dear papa,” Eva answered, pleadingly in her despair.
“I do not call it wrong, Eva. It was a foolish, senseless vendetta, unworthy of a civilized age like this, and it would have been wise for you and Doctor Ludington to end it by intermarriage of the families,” replied Mr. Somerville frankly, speaking straight from his heart in his tenderness over his child.
“Oh, you don’t understand it, dear papa,” she sighed. “Granfather was unjustly accused by the Ludingtons, and really persecuted by them. So how dreadful for his granddaughter to love and marry one of his enemy’s race.”
“Eva, you are still halfway a little savage in these hidebound prejudices inherited from your stern old grandfather,” her father said, in gentle rebuke, but she sighed.
“He was fond of me and kind to me, and I must take his part.”
“He was neither fond nor kind when he turned you out of doors to perish on a wintry night, believing you had dishonored the family name,” he retorted quickly and indignantly.
Eva’s bosom heaved, and tears sparkled into her big dark eyes.
“They goaded him to it, those vipers who hated me,” she said bitterly. “He soon repented; he would have atoned if he had not died. I forgave him everything because we had loved each other so.”