is he occupied with such a baby-face as thine." Alice, pale as
death, continued motionless, with her eyes fixed on the ground, without
attempting the slightest reply to the ironical reproaches of her father.

"And you," continued Major Bridgenorth, turning from his daughter to her
lover,--"you sir, have well repaid the liberal confidence which I
placed in you with so little reserve. You I have to thank also for some
lessons, which may teach me to rest satisfied with the churl's blood
which nature has poured into my veins, and with the rude nurture which
my father allotted to me."

"I understand you not, sir," replied Julian Peveril, who, feeling the
necessity of saying something, could not, at the moment, find anything
more fitting to say.

"Yes, sir, I thank you," said Major Bridgenorth, in the same cold
sarcastic tone, "for having shown me that breach of hospitality,
infringement of good faith, and such like peccadilloes, are not utterly
foreign to the mind and conduct of the heir of a knightly house of
twenty descents. It is a great lesson to me, sir: for hitherto I had
thought with the vulgar, that gentle manners went with gentle blood. But
perhaps courtesy is too chivalrous a quality to be wasted in intercourse
with a round-headed fanatic like myself."

"Major Bridgenorth," said Julian, "whatever has happened in this
interview which may have displeased you, has been the result of feelings
suddenly and strongly animated by the crisis of the moment--nothing was
premeditated."

"Not even your meeting, I suppose?" replied Bridgenorth, in the same
cold tone. "You, sir, wandered hither from Holm-Peel--my daughter
strolled forth from the Black Fort; and chance, doubtless, assigned you
a meeting by the stone of Goddard Crovan?--Young man, disgrace yourself
by no more apologies--they are worse than useless.--And you, maiden,
who, in your fear of losing your lover, could verge on betraying what
might have cost a father his life--begone to your home. I will talk with
you at more leisure, and teach you practically those duties which you
seem to have forgotten."

"On my honour, sir," said Julian, "your daughter is guiltless of all
that can offend you; she resisted every offer which the headstrong
violence of my passion urged me to press upon her."

"And, in brief," said Bridgenorth, "I am not to believe that you met in
this remote place of rendezvous by Alice's special appointment?"

Peveril knew not what to reply, and