“No I don’t, papa,” sobbed Barbara.
“Then why do you do it?”
Barbara was silent.
“No; you can’t answer; you have nothing to urge. What is the matter, pray, with Major Thorn? Come, I will be answered.”
“I don’t like him,” faltered Barbara.
“You do like him; you are telling me an untruth. You have liked him well enough whenever he has been here.”
“I like him as an acquaintance, papa; not as a husband.”
“Not as a husband!” repeated the exasperated justice. “Why, bless my heart and body, the girl’s going mad! Not as a husband! Who asked you to like him as a husband before he became such? Did ever you hear that it was necessary or expedient, or becoming for a young lady to act on and begin to ‘like’ a gentleman as ‘her husband?’”
Barbara felt a little bewildered.
“Here’s the whole parish saying that Barbara Hare can’t be married, that nobody will have her, on account of—of—of that cursed stain left by——, I won’t trust myself to name him, I should go too far. Now, don’t you think that’s a pretty disgrace, a fine state of things?”