With this parting shaft Violet, with uplifted head and flashing eyes, walked deliberately from her sister's presence and up to her own room.
"The little vixen will do it, Belle, as sure as you live," remarked Wilhelm Mencke, who had returned to the drawing-room in season to catch the latter portion of Violet's remarks.
"She shall not!" cried his wife, angrily. "Marry that low-born carpenter who has to labor with his hands for daily bread! Never!"
"I do not see how you are going to help it; you know she has the grit of a dozen common women in that small body, and a will of iron," replied Mr. Mencke.
"Then I'll break her will! I came of a resolute stock, too, and it will be Roman against Roman, with the advantage on my side. She shall never compromise herself, nor us, by any such misalliance."
Mr. Mencke looked a trifle sheepish at this spirited speech. He could not forget, if his wife did, that some fourteen years previous he had been as badly off, if not worse, than this young carpenter. He had been a laborer in the employ of Miss Belle Huntington's father, and she had not felt that she was compromising herself or her parents by marrying him, and the wealthy pork-packer's daughter had run away with the man whom she loved.
"What will you do to prevent it?" he asked, after a few moments of awkward silence. "The girl can marry him any day if she takes a notion; the will says we are to be the guardians of the property 'until she is twenty-one or marries.' It would make it rather awkward for me if she should, for her husband would have the right to demand her fortune, and—Belle, the duse would be to pay if I should lose my hold on that money."
"What is the matter, Will?" demanded Mrs. Mencke looking startled.
"Hum—nothing much, only—it is so mixed up with my own affairs it would cripple me to have to fork it over on short notice," Mr. Mencke replied, looking exceedingly glum.
"You may rest satisfied upon one point; you will never have to surrender it to that fellow," his wife returned, decisively. "I will send Violet to a convent first, and she would be kept straight enough there."