fectionate, he both saw and felt; but beyond this he neither saw
anything, nor cared about seeing anything. The young sailor was as
profoundly ignorant that Bridget was the actual owner of certain three
per cents, that brought twelve hundred a year, as if she did not own a
'copper,' as it was the fashion of that period to say,'_cents_' being
then very little, if at all, used. Nor did he know anything of the farm
she had inherited from her mother, or of the store in town, that brought
three hundred and fifty more in rent. It is true that some allusions
were made to these matters by Doctor Yardley, in his angry comments on
the Woolston family generally, Anne always excepted, and in whose
flavour he made a salvo, even in the height of his denunciations. Still.
Mark thought so much of that which was really estimable and admirable
in Bridget, and so little of anything mercenary, that even after these
revelations he could not comprehend the causes of Doctor Yardley's harsh
treatment of him. During the whole scene, which was purposely enacted in
the presence of his wondering and trembling daughter, Mark behaved
perfectly well. He had a respect for the Doctor's years, as well as for
Bridget's father, and would not retort. After waiting as long as he
conceived waiting could be of any use, he seized his hat, and left the
room with an air of resentment that Bridget construed into the
expression of an intention never to speak to any of them again. But Mark
Woolston was governed by no such design, as the sequel will show.

Chapter II.

"She's not fourteen."
"I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,--
She is not fourteen."--

_Romeo and Juliet._

Divine wisdom has commanded us to "Honour your father and your mother."
Observant travellers affirm that less respect is paid to parents in
America, than is usual in Christian nations--we say _Christian_ nations;
for many of the heathen, the Chinese for instance, worship them, though
probably with an allegorical connection that we do not understand. That
the parental tie is more loose in this country than in most others we
believe, and there is a reason to be found for it in the migratory
habits of the people, and in the general looseness in all the ties that
connect men with the past. The laws on the subject of matrimony,
moreover, are so very lax, intercourse is so simple and has so many
facilities, and t