ther and deeper wrongs you have done me, serpent,
fiend, household ingrate as you are!"

"And what may those other wrongs be?" was the cold and half sneering
rejoinder to this passionate outbreak.

"My daughter!" said the merchant, sweeping a hand across his forehead.
"It sickens me to mention her name here and thus, but my
daughter--even there has your venom reached."

"Perhaps I understand you," said the young man with insufferable
coolness; "but if your daughter chose to love where her father hates
how am I to blame? I am sure it has cost me a great deal of trouble to
keep the young lady's partiality a secret. If you have found it out at
last so much the better."

Mr. Hurst, with all his firmness, was struck dumb by this cool and
taunting reply, but after a moment's fierce struggle he mastered the
passion within him and spoke.

"You love"--the words absolutely choked the proud man--"you love my
daughter then--why was this never mentioned to me?"

"It was the young lady's fancy, I suppose; perhaps she shrunk from so
grim a confident; at any rate it is very certain that I did!"

Mr. Hurst shaded his face with one hand and seemed to struggle
fiercely with himself. Jameson sat playing with the tassel of his
cane, now and then casting furtive glances at his benefactor.

"Young man," said the merchant, slowly withdrawing his hand, "I have
but to denounce you to the laws, and you leave this room for a
convict's cell."

"It may be that you have this power!" replied Jameson, with
undisturbed self-possession, "I am sure I cannot say whether you have
or not!"

"I _have_ the power, what should withhold me!"

"Oh, many things. Your daughter, for instance!"

"My daughter!"

"You interrupt me, sir. I was about to say your daughter has given me
some rather unequivocal proofs of her love, and they would become
unpleasantly public, you know, if her father insisted upon dragging me
before the world. Your daughter, sir, must be my shield and buckler, I
never desire a better or fairer."

Here a noise broke from the conservatory, and the silk curtain shook
violently, but as it was spring time, and with open doors for the wind
to circulate through, this did not seem extraordinary. Still, Mr.
Hurst looked anxiously around, and Jameson cast a careless glance that
way.

It was very painful, nay withering to his proud heart, but Mr. Hurst
was determined to lay open the black nature of that man before his
child; he knew tha