s view only, she
summoned firmness enough to speak.

"Father," she said, "had we not better defer our family matters, until
we are alone?"

Under ordinary circumstances, Bluewater would not have waited for so
palpable a hint, for he would have retired on the first appearance of
any thing so disagreeable as a misunderstanding between man and wife.
But, an ungovernable interest in the lovely girl, who stood trembling at
her father's knee, caused him to forget his habitual delicacy of
feeling, and to overlook what might perhaps be termed almost a law of
society. Instead of moving, therefore, as Mildred had both hoped and
expected, he remained motionless in his seat. Dutton's mind was too
obtuse to comprehend his daughter's allusions, in the absence, of ocular
evidence of a stranger's presence, and his wrath was too much excited to
permit him to think much of any thing but his own causes of indignation.

"Stand more in front of me, Mildred," he answered, angrily. "More before
my face, as becomes one who don't know her duty to her parent, and needs
be taught it."

"Oh! Dutton," exclaimed the afflicted wife; "do not--do not--accuse
Mildred of being undutiful! You know not what you say--know not her
obliga--you cannot know her _heart_, or you would not use these cruel
imputations!"

"Silence, Mrs. Martha Dutton--my business is not with _you_, at present,
but with this young lady, to whom, I hope, I may presume to speak a
little plainly, as she is my own child. Silence, then, Mrs. Martha
Dutton. If my memory is not treacherous, you once stood up before God's
altar with me, and there vow'd to love, honour, and _obey_. Yes, that
was the word; _obey_, Mrs. Martha Dutton."

"And what did _you_ promise, at the same time, Frank?" exclaimed the
wife, from whose bruised spirit this implied accusation was torn in an
agony of mental suffering.

"Nothing but what I have honestly and manfully performed. I promised to
provide for you; to give you food and raiment; to let you hear my name,
and stand before the world in the honourable character of honest Frank
Dutton's wife."

"Honourable!" murmured the wife, loud enough to be heard by both the
Admiral and Mildred, and yet in a tone so smothered, as to elude the
obtuse sense of hearing, that long excess had left her husband. When
this expressive word had broken out of her very heart, however, she
succeeded in suppressing her voice, and sinking into a chair, concealed
her face in he