privy to my daughter's intention, or were you not?-if, as I shrewdly suspect, you were, and have been a party in deceiving me, you quit the house within an hour."

"Mr. Dalton, sir, I'd be sorry for any cause to quit the house in which I was born; but, as for deceiving you, sir, I have never done that since we were boys together. It has been reported, sir, about, as Miss Emily had got married, but my first true knowledge of it was from the newspaper."

Mr. Dalton looked keenly at the old man for a moment, and then again betook himself to pacing the room. At first he was silent; but the corrugation of his brows and the clenching of his hands testified the utter absence of patience or composure. At length, he broke forth into a thundering ejaculation :

"The beggar! the upstart! the baseborn beggar; but he shall rue his presumption, as she shall her disobedience: they shall bitterly rue."

"Oh sir," said the old butler, starting

forward, "forgive me, sir, don't be angry with the liberty I take-but poor Miss Emily sir, your only child-you'll surely forgive her."

This interposition was as injudicious and ill-timed as it was well meant.

"I will not forgive her, and that she knows. I have warned her sufficiently; she has deliberately contemned my opinion, and must abide the consequences of her disobedience."

"Still, sir, if I may make bold to speak, I hope you will relent. Mr. Meredith is a very worthy young gentleman, and—” "Mr. Meredith be d-d; and you sir, be silent."

He took the paper from the ground where he had jerked it, and deliberately re-read the announcement which had excited this burst of passion.

"Married At Gretna Green on the 25th ulto; the Reverend Henry Meredith to Emily, daughter of Frederick Dalton, Esq.; of Beechwood Manor. Mr. Dalton

is a gentleman of large property, to which the bride, being an only child, is sole heiress."

"Is she?" said Mr. Dalton, bitterly; "is she? So thinks, doubtless, the precious beggar who has married her. We shall see.-Order my horses directly."

"Oh, Mr. Dalton," again ventured Harvey.

"Begone, sir," thundered Mr. Dalton, "and do as you are bid. Order Joe to ride quickly, without a moment's delay, to Mr. Scribewell, and request that gentleman not to leave his house until he has seen me."

The butler retired to execute these peremptory demands, the purport of which he too well guessed.

"It's all as I feared," said he to the housekeeper, who was anxiously waiting for news. "Master's going straight to his lawyer."

"What a pity he is so almighty passionate," said the housekeeper.

"All the Daltons is so and always was,' rejoined the butler. "They would never bear a contradiction, never a one of them, Master was never no better than the rest on 'em; and his brother as went abroad was a regular devil. He and the old gentleman never could agree."

"He was older than our master, wasn't he ?"

"Yes: two years older; and the heir, if he'd lived."

66

Wasn't he drowned ?"

Why it was said so, but we never rightly knew what became on him. He parted with old master in a towering rage. Old England wouldn't hold 'em both."

At this moment Mr. Dalton's bell again pealed forth a summons.

CHAPTER II.

JOE arrived at Mr. Scribewell's door, just as that gentleman was entering a chaise to drive a few miles from home on business, but he returned to his office door to speak with the messenger, and his representations -for the kitchen and servants' hall at the Manor House were ringing with the news of Miss Dalton's marriage and her father's unappeasable rage-caused the lawyer to hesitate whether to pursue his journey or await the coming of his client. He shrewdly surmised the object of

Mr.