"How long do you expect to be gone?" the Judge interrupted.
"Till the day when I am to marry almost in secret, or when you send for me."
The Judge was walking up and down. He turned and replied. "I shall not send for you."
"Do you still deny us the right to be married in a church?"
"You shall never marry her at all with my sanction, and if you marry her without it, you marry out West or in there," he added, waving toward the drawing room. "There must be no guests."
"I should like to marry in my father's house, but on the prairie or in the woods will do as well; it makes no difference." He looked hard at his father, and, after a time, added: "I didn't think that a man could change so much—be so unnatural."
"None of that, sir!" the Judge exclaimed, turning upon him. "It is not for you to call me unnatural."
"Father, if I have committed a crime in your eye, why don't you tell me what it is?"
"In my eye! You must have studied long to frame that speech."
"But why don't you tell me?"