loser together
than they might have done had there been no parental objection in the
way; and under the folds of Emily's dark mantilla, which lay upon her
lap, there may have been two hands clasped together. Let the young and
the loving, whose province it is to make such follies half the material
of their lives, decide whether affairs were likely to be exactly in the
shape suggested,--as also, whether at any time during the evening, when
it had become necessary for Frank Wallace to make a remark to his
companion, he had or had not leaned down his lips so close to her ear as
almost to kiss its pink pendant.

The first intimation had by the absorbed lovers that the paternal bomb
was bursting in the neighborhood, was conveyed by the Judge halting at
the end of their row, leaning over the two or three people between,
without any apology, stretching out his arm, and saying in his loud,
coarse voice:

"Miss Emily Owen, you are wanted at home."

The blood flew to the face of the young girl in an instant, though it
was the blood of anxiety and not of shame, and she asked:

"Is any one ill--hurt?--My mother--"

"Your mother is well, and there is no one sick at home," said the Judge,
determined that his lesson to his daughter should not be balked by any
one of the audience thinking him less a brute than he was. "But I find
you here in improper company and against my orders; and I command you to
leave that man and come home with me instantly."

Decided sensation in the orchestra-seats, and even on the stage, where
Mrs. Florence paused in the middle of one of her most effective
Yankeeisms, to know what caused the interruption. Sensation in a good
many fingers, that they would like to be applied violently to the ears
of the man who could speak in that manner to so sweet-looking a girl, no
matter under what provocation. A few hisses and cries of "Hush-h-h!"
"Hush-h-h!" Poor Emily had sunk back in her chair, the moment her
anxiety was relieved by mortification, merely saying in a pleading
voice, as if to disarm her tyrant:

"Oh, father!"

Frank Wallace, meanwhile, had sprung to his feet, the moment the
opprobrious epithet was applied to him; and though he distinctly saw
that the intruder was the puissant Judge Owen, Emily's father, and large
enough, physically, to eat him for lunch--he was on the point of
springing across the intervening space and giving him a taste of his
gymnastic quality. This would have been terribly imp