her father's bowels of
compassion. Fathers always have bowels of compassion at last."

"You will return then, of course?"

"What do you say?"

"As for myself,--or as for you?"

"As a discreet and trusty counsellor. To me you have always been a
trusty counsellor."

"Then I should put a few things into a bag, go down to Merle Park,
and declare that, in spite of all the edicts that ever came from a
father's mouth, you cannot absent yourself while you know that your
Gertrude is ill."

"And so prepare a new cousin for you to press to your bosom."

"If you can endure her for always, why should not I for an hour or
two, now and again?"

"Why not, indeed? In fact, Imogene, this enduring, and not
enduring,--even this living, and not living,--is, after all, but an
affair of the imagination. Who can tell but, that as years roll on,
she may be better-looking even than you."

"Certainly."

"And have as much to say for herself?"

"A great deal more that is worth hearing."

"And behave herself as a mother of a family with quite as much
propriety?"

"In all that I do not doubt that she would be my superior."

"More obedient I am sure she would be."

"Or she would be very disobedient."

"And then she can provide me and my children with ample comforts."

"Which I take it is the real purpose for which a wife should be
married."

"Therefore," said he,--and then he stopped.

"And therefore there should be no doubt."

"Though I hate her," he said, clenching his fist with violence as he
spoke, "with every fibre of my heart,--still you think there should
be no doubt?"

"That, Frank, is violent language,--and foolish."

"And though I love you so intensely that whenever I see her the
memory of you becomes an agony to me."

"Such language is only more violent and more foolish."

"Surely not, if I have made up my mind at last, that I never will
willingly see Miss Tringle again." Here he got up, and walking across
the rug, stood over her, and waited as though expecting some word
from her. But she, putting her two hands up to her head, and brushing
her hair away from her forehead, looked up to him for what further
words might come to him. "Surely not," he continued, "if I have made
up my mind at last, that nothing shall ever again serve to rob me of
your love,--if I may still hope to possess it."

"Oh, Frank!" she said, "how mean I am to be a creature obedient to
the whistle of such a master as you!"

"But are yo