educated;--oh, so much better than most men that
one meets. And he is clever. Papa, I wish you knew him better than
you do."

"I do not want to know him better."

"Is not that prejudice, papa?"

"My dear Emily," said Mr. Wharton, striving to wax into anger that he
might be firm against her, "I don't think that it becomes you to ask
your father such a question as that. You ought to believe that it is
the chief object of my life to do the best I can for my children."

"I am sure it is."

"And you ought to feel that, as I have had a long experience in the
world, my judgment about a young man might be trusted."

That was a statement which Miss Wharton was not prepared to admit.
She had already professed herself willing to submit to her father's
judgment, and did not now by any means contemplate rebellion against
parental authority. But she did feel that on a matter so vital to her
she had a right to plead her cause before judgment should be given,
and she was not slow to assure herself, even as this interview went
on, that her love for the man was strong enough to entitle her to
assure her father that her happiness depended on his reversal of the
sentence already pronounced. "You know, papa, that I trust you," she
said. "And I have promised you that I will not disobey you. If you
tell me that I am never to see Mr. Lopez again, I will not see him."

"You are a good girl. You were always a good girl."

"But I think that you ought to hear me." Then he stood still with his
hands in his trowsers pockets looking at her. He did not want to hear
a word, but he felt that he would be a tyrant if he refused. "If you
tell me that I am not to see him, I shall not see him. But I shall be
very unhappy. I do love him, and I shall never love any one else in
the same way."

"That is nonsense, Emily. There is Arthur Fletcher."

"I am sure you will never ask me to marry a man I do not love, and
I shall never love Arthur Fletcher. If this is to be as you say, it
will make me very, very wretched. It is right that you should know
the truth. If it is only because Mr. Lopez has a foreign name--"

"It isn't only that; no one knows anything about him, or where to
inquire even."

"I think you should inquire, papa, and be quite certain before you
pronounce such a sentence against me. It will be a crushing blow."
He looked at her, and saw that there was a fixed purpose in her
countenance of which he had never before seen similar signs. "