to her father's presence.

He was walking up and down the room, and did not see her at first.

"Oh, Jemima! is that you? Has your mother told you what I want to
speak to you about?"

"No!" said Jemima. "Not exactly."

"She has been telling me what proves to me how very seriously you
must have displeased and offended Mr Farquhar, before he could have
expressed himself to her as he did, when he left the house. You know
what he said?"

"No!" said Jemima, her heart swelling within her. "He has no right to
say anything about me." She was desperate, or she durst not have said
this before her father.

"No right!--what do you mean, Jemima?" said Mr Bradshaw, turning
sharp round. "Surely you must know that I hope he may one day be
your husband; that is to say, if you prove yourself worthy of the
excellent training I have given you. I cannot suppose Mr Farquhar
would take any undisciplined girl as a wife."

Jemima held tight by a chair near which she was standing. She did not
speak; her father was pleased by her silence--it was the way in which
he liked his projects to be received.

"But you cannot suppose," he continued, "that Mr Farquhar will
consent to marry you--"

"Consent to marry me!" repeated Jemima, in a low tone of brooding
indignation; were those the terms upon which her rich woman's heart
was to be given, with a calm consent of acquiescent acceptance, but a
little above resignation on the part of the receiver?

--"if you give way to a temper which, although you have never dared
to show it to me, I am well aware exists, although I hoped the
habits of self-examination I had instilled had done much to cure
you of manifesting it. At one time, Richard promised to be the more
headstrong of the two; now, I must desire you to take pattern by him.
Yes," he continued, falling into his old train of thought, "it would
be a most fortunate connexion for you in every way. I should have you
under my own eye, and could still assist you in the formation of your
character, and I should be at hand to strengthen and confirm your
principles. Mr Farquhar's connexion with the firm would be convenient
and agreeable to me in a pecuniary point of view. He--" Mr Bradshaw
was going on in his enumeration of the advantages which he in
particular, and Jemima in the second place, would derive from this
marriage, when his daughter spoke, at first so low that he could not
hear her, as he walked up and down the room with his creaking boots,