w do I know that you are a man of honor and a
gentleman?"

"Sir Thomas, don't allow your passion or prejudice to impose upon your
judgment and penetration as a man of the world. I know you feel this
moment that you are addressing a man who is both; and your own heart
tells you that every word I have uttered respecting Miss Gourlay is
true."

"You will excuse me there, sir," replied the baronet. "Your position in
this neighborhood is anything but a guarantee to the truth of what you
say. If you be a gentleman--a man of honor, why live here, incognito,
afraid to declare your name, or your rank, if you have any?--why lie
_perdu_, like a man under disgrace, or who had fled from justice?"

"Well, then, I beg you to rest satisfied that I am not under disgrace,
and that I have motives for concealing my name that are disinterested,
and even honorable, to myself, if they were known."

"Pray, will you answer me another question--Do you happen to know a firm
in London named Grinwell and Co.? they are toothbrush manufacturers?
Now, mark my words well--I say Grinwell and Co., tooth-brush
manufacturers."

"I have until this moment never heard of Grinwell and Co., tooth-brush
manufacturers."

"Now, sir," replied Sir Thomas, "all this may be very well and very
true; but there is one fact that you can neither deny nor dispute. You
have been paying your addresses clandestinely to my daughter, and there
is a mutual attachment between you."

"I love your daughter--I will not deny it."

"She returns your affections?"

"I cannot reply to anything involving Miss Gourlay's opinions, who is
not here to explain them; nor is it generous in you to force me into the
presumptuous task of interpreting her sentiments on such a subject."

"The fact, however, is this. I have for some years entertained other
and different views with respect to her settlement in life. You may be a
gentleman, or you may be an impostor; but one thing is certain, you have
taught her to contravene my wishes--to despise the honors to which a
dutiful obedience to them would exalt her--to spurn my affection, and to
trample on my authority. Now, sir, listen to me. Renounce her--give up
all claims to her--withdraw every pretension, now and forever; or, by
the living God! you shall never carry your life out of this room. Sooner
than have the noble design which I proposed for her frustrated; sooner
than have the projects of my whole life for her honorable exaltation
rui