aid, "but I didn't
believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's weak head? Who has
encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it's you, Dermody,
it shall be the worst day's work you ever did in your life." He turned
to me again, before the bailiff could defend himself. "Do you hear what
I say? I tell you to leave Dermody's girl, and come home with me."

"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you please,
after I have been with you."

Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my audacity.

"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out. "I tell
you this: you will never darken these doors again! You have been taught
to disobey me here. You have had things put into your head, here, which
no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say more, which no decent people
would have let you know."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully and very
firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a master in a hot
temper is privileged to say to the man who serves him. But you have gone
beyond your privilege. You have shamed me, sir, in the presence of my
mother, in the hearing of my child--"

My father checked him there.

"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and servant
no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage, and playing at
sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to close the door on
him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you no longer. Take a month's
notice, Dermody. You leave my service."

The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no longer the
easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my remembrance.

"I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he answered. "You
shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just said to me.
I will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave your service
to-morrow."

"We agree for once," retorted my father. "The sooner you go, the
better."

He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control himself. "I
don't want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant. There must be
an end to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack up and go, and come
back to the house with me."

His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the spirit
of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to melt him by
entreaties.

"Oh, papa! papa!" I cried. "Do