ent
outside the library door and she knew Mary was listening). "Mr. Smith--"

"Sit down, sit down!" he said. "I am afraid you are troubled about
something?"

She sat down on the extreme edge of a chair, and he stood in front of
her, stroking his white beard and looking at her, amused and bored, and
very rich--but not unkind.

"Mr. Smith--" she faltered. She swallowed two or three times, and
squeezed her hands together; then, brokenly, but with almost no
circumlocution, she told him. . . .

There was a terrible scene in that handsome, shadowy, lamplit room. Miss
Lydia emerged from it white and trembling; she fairly ran back to her
own gate, stumbled up the mossy brick path to her front door, burst into
her unlighted house, then locked the door and bolted it, and fell in a
small, shaking heap against it, as if it barred out the loud anger and
shame which she had left behind her in the great house among the trees.

While Mary had crouched in the hall, her ear against the keyhole, Miss
Lydia Sampson had held that blazing-eyed old man to common sense. No, he
must _not_ carry the girl to Mercer the next day, and take the hound by
the throat, and marry them out of hand. No, he must _not_ summon the
scoundrel to Old Chester and send for Doctor Lavendar. No, he must _not_
have a private wedding. . . . "They must be married in church and have
white ribbons up the aisle," gasped Miss Lydia, "and--and rice. Don't
you understand? And it isn't nice, Mr. Smith, to use such language
before ladies."

It was twelve o'clock when Miss Lydia, in her dark entry, went over in
her own mind the "language" which had been used; all he had vowed he
would do, and all she had declared he should not do, and all Mary
(called in from the hall) had retorted as to the cruel things that had
been done to her and Carl "which had just driven them _wild_!" And then
the curious rage with which Mr. Smith had turned upon his daughter when
she cried out, "Father, make her promise not to tell!" At that the new
Mr. Smith's anger touched a really noble note:

"What! Insult this lady by asking for a 'promise'? Good God! madam," he
said, turning to Miss Sampson, "is this girl mine, to offer such an
affront to a friend?"

At which Miss Lydia felt, just for an instant, that he _was_ nice. But
the next moment the thought of his fury at Mary made her feel sick.
Remembering it now, she said to herself, "It was awful in him to show
his teeth that way, and to call