Mrs. Gordon's first remark was not flattering, for as Maria entered her room she cried out, "La, child! what is the matter with you? You look ill, worried, older than you ought to look. Are you in trouble?" "Yes, Madame." "Stepmother?" "Father." "Ah! Stepmothers make stepfathers, every one knows that. We shall have a dish of tea and you shall tell me about it. Then I will help you. But one can't build without stone. What has the stepfather done?" Then Maria told her friend all her trouble, and was rather chilled in the telling by certain signs of qualified sympathy. And when the story was finished Mrs. Gordon's first remark was yet more disheartening: "'Tis a common calamity," she said, "and better people than you have endured it." "But, Madame----" "Yes, I know what you are going to say. But you must consider first that your father was acting quite within his authority. He had the right to choose your husband." "I had already chosen my husband." "Then you ought, when you first came home, to have notified your parents. Sure, you had so much responsibility to fulfill. Why did you not do your duty in this matter?" "I think I was afraid." "To be sure you were. Little coward! Pray what did you fear? Ernest Medway?" "Yes. I thought, perhaps--as I told you, we parted in anger, and I thought perhaps he might not keep his word, there were so many reasons why he might like to break it, and also, in war-time life is uncertain. He has been wounded, sick; he might have died." "So might you, or I, for that matter. A pretty account you give of yourself. Lord, child! you surely had letters to show your father." "I had a few, but they were only a line or two. I was sure they would be made fun of, and I was angry, too. I thought if they would not take my word, I would not give vouchers for it. Not I!" "Don't dash at things in that way, child. Your father was not bound to believe your story, especially as you did not tell it until he had made all arrangements for your marriage with this Mr. Spencer. Your conduct was too zigzaggery; you should have been straight." "Father ought to have believed me." "We have it on good authority that all men are liars, and I daresay that your father has known better people than either you or I to tell lies. Really, I ought to give you a scolding, and this is nothing like it." "It was such an outrage to force me to the very altar. The consequences were at my father's door." "Custom, use and wont, take the outrage out of many things. Good gracious, Maria, most of the women I know were in some way or other forced to the altar; good for them, too, and generally they found that out. My own cousin, Lady Clarisse Home, went weeping there; Miss Anne Gordon, a cousin of my husband, refused to get up, said she was ill, and her friends had the marriage at her bedside. 'Tis above or below reason, but these same women adored their husbands within a week's time." "Oh, dear! what shall I say? What shall I do?"