et my remonstrances, I should have spared myself
this meeting. Good-morning."

"Good-morning," said Conolly, gravely. When the door closed, he sprang
up and walked to and fro, chuckling, rubbing his hands, and occasionally
uttering a short laugh. When he had sufficiently relieved himself by
this exercise, he sat down at his desk, and wrote a note.

"The Conolly Electro-Motor Company of London, Limited. Queen
Victoria Street, E.C.

"This is to let your ever-radiant ladyship know that I am fresh
from an encounter with your father, who has retired in great wrath,
defeated, but of opinion that he deserved no better for arguing
with a Radical. I thought it better to put forth my strength at
once so as to save future trouble. I send this post haste in order
that you may be warned in case he should go straight home and scold
you. I hope he will not annoy you much.--E.C."

Having despatched the office boy to Westbourne Terrace with this letter,
Conolly went off to lunch. Mr. Lind went back to his club, and then to
Westbourne Terrace, where he was informed that the young ladies were
together in the drawing-room. Some minutes later, Marian, discussing
Conolly's letter with Elinor, was interrupted by a servant, who informed
her that her father desired to see her in his study.

"Now for it, Marian!" said Nelly, when the servant was gone. "Remember
that you have to meet the most unreasonable of adversaries, a parent
asserting his proprietary rights in his child. Dont be sentimental.
Leave that to him: he will be full of a father's anguish on discovering
that his cherished daughter has feelings and interests of her own.
Besides, Conolly has crushed him; and he will try to crush you in
revenge."

"I wish I were not so nervous," said Marian. "I am not really afraid,
but for all that, my heart is beating very unpleasantly."

"I wish I were in your place," said Elinor. "I feel like a charger at
the sound of the trumpet."

"I am glad, for poor papa's sake, that you are not," said Marian, going
out.

She knocked at the study door; and her father's voice, as he bade her
come in, impressed her more than ever before. He was seated behind the
writing-table, in front of which a chair was set for his daughter. She,
unaccustomed from her childhood to submit to any constraint but that
which the position of a guest, which she so often occupied, had trained
her to impose on herself, was rather roused than awed by this
m