"There! the very recollection of it frightens her to death. Go to your room, my dear, and I'll send this blustering fellow out of the house."
She glided out of the study without speaking a word, and I hurried to the drawing-room, but no Billy was there. His mother and sisters were luckily in London, so I turned angrily round on the father.
"A pretty fellow this son of yours—never one word of apology, either to me or Martha—I won't have him roystering here at all hours, frightening affectionate little girls with his violence."
"Who is it he has frightened?" enquired old Morgan; "who are the affectionate girls you mean? I'm sure he has never caused the least alarm to his sisters in his life."
"Perhaps not—perhaps not, Mr Morgan; but there is another girl that I wouldn't have any injury done to on any account. In fact, I may as well tell you at once, that Martha evidently expects me to provide for her happiness, and I am going to do it."
"Well, nothing can be fairer—but how?"
"Why, as to any little blot on her birth, I don't care much about it. Uncle was a kind friend to me, and I really think I can't do better than give a good steady husband to his child."
"Bravo! bravo! when you have found her."
"What do you mean by—when I have found her?"
"Why, have you never read the letters?"