her. Dorothy had learned to believe from agreeable experience that it was
a crime in any one, bordering on treason, to thwart her ardent desires. It
is true she had in certain events, been compelled to coax and even to weep
gently. On a few extreme occasions she had been forced to do a little
storming in order to have her own way; but that any presumptuous
individuals should resist her will after the storming had been resorted
to was an event of such recent happening in her life that she had not
grown familiar with the thought of it. Therefore, while she felt that her
father might seriously annoy her with the Stanley project, and while she
realized that she might be compelled to resort to the storming process in
a degree thitherto uncalled for, she believed that the storm she would
raise would blow her father entirely out of his absurd and utterly
untenable position. On the other hand, while Sir George anticipated
trouble with Dorothy, he had never been able to believe that she would
absolutely refuse to obey him. In those olden times--now nearly half a
century past--filial disobedience was rare. The refusal of a child to obey
a parent, and especially the refusal of a daughter to obey her father in
the matter of marriage, was then looked upon as a crime and was frequently
punished in a way which amounted to barbarous ferocity. Sons, being of the
privileged side of humanity, might occasionally disobey with impunity, but
woe to the poor girl who dared set up a will of her own. A man who could
not compel obedience from his daughter was looked upon as a poor weakling,
and contempt was his portion in the eyes of his fellow-men--in the eyes of
his fellow-brutes, I should like to say.

Growing out of such conditions was the firm belief on the part of Sir
George that Dorothy would in the end obey him; but if by any hard chance
she should be guilty of the high crime of disobedience--Well! Sir George
intended to prevent the crime. Perhaps mere stubborness and fear of the
contempt in which he would be held by his friends in case he were defeated
by his own daughter were no small parts of Sir George's desire to carry
through the enterprise in which he had embarked with the Stanleys.
Although there was no doubt in Sir George's mind that he would eventually
conquer in the conflict with Dorothy, he had a profound respect for the
power of his antagonist to do temporary battle, and he did not care to
enter into actual hostilities until