"Father!" she gasped. "What did you say? Miss Emily! my Miss Emily is going to marry that man?"
"So it is said, lassie. I'm afraid it is true. There has been talk of it all winter, but I don't think the Major had any idea of how things were going until lately. Early in May Mr. Tayloe left Greenfield and went to board at Mr. Thompson's. Of course his moving from Greenfield, where he was so intimate, set tongues wagging; and then it came out that he and Miss Emily were engaged, and that her father opposed the match. I have asked no questions, but I cannot help seeing that the Major is not himself, and how he is ageing."
"I don't see how Miss Emily can disobey such a good father," said Flea, indignantly. "His little finger-nail is worth more than forty thousand Jack Tayloes. If she knows how her father feels, she will surely give up all notion of that little—monster!"
Her father looked amused.
"He isn't a monster, but a well-born, well-educated gentleman, not bad-looking, and with a voice like a church organ. Your mother says he sang his way into Miss Emily's heart. I wonder the Major didn't suspect what might come of all their music and horseback rides and walks together; but he is so open-hearted and aboveboard himself that he probably set it down to young folks' natural enjoyment in each other's society. It hurts me to see him take it so hard. Miss Emily will be of age in a few months, and she can then marry anybody she chooses. Except that he has a hasty temper and an ugly way of showing it, I don't know that there is anything against him. She will have money enough for both. Her grandmother left her a nice little fortune, besides what the Major can give her."
"Nothing against him!" burst forth Flea, passionately. "He is the wickedest man ever created. Mean, spiteful, deceitful, and cruel as a tiger. He looks like a tiger when his eyebrows draw together and his mouth draws up and the roots of his nose draw in. To think of his daring to lift his eyes to my sweet, pretty, darling Miss Emily! If I were her brother, I'd shoot him sooner than he should have her."
"Lassie! lassie! That is strong language."
"Not half as strong as he deserves, father. You don't guess what a creature he is. Aunt Jean never wrote to you about it, for she did not want to distress you; but poor Dee couldn't go to school for a month after he went to Philadelphia. He had terrible pains in his head and was sick at the stomach all the time, and she had him examined by a great doctor there, who said he had been seriously injured by so much beating on the head—that a little more of it would have made him an idiot. That monster of cruelty used to whack the poor boy every day with his heavy ruler, because he was slow at his lessons. Dee cannot study long now without having a sick headache. He can never be a learned scholar. And I did so hope he would be a distinguished man! Instead of getting married, Mr. Tayloe ought to be put into the penitentiary. He deserves hanging—and worse."
The rush of hot words choked her. Her father patted her shoulder soothingly.
"Don't take it so to heart, dear child. It isn't like you to fly into such a passion."