“‘Why, Emily, verily I fear that long confinement, and want of exercise, and change, and air, are preying upon your mind; you are not speaking rationally. Rise, child, and do not pursue this folly—or I may think you mad!’ He disengaged her hands gently from his knee, which they had the moment before clasped, and raised her from her kneeling posture, she weeping bitterly. “I am not mad, papa, nor is my sister; but we fear lest God’s anger should fall upon you, nay, upon us all, if you will not listen to the voice of compassion.’ “‘Be seated, Emily,’ said the Earl. ‘Excited as you are at present,’ he continued, with rapidly increasing sternness of manner, ‘no words of mine will be able to satisfy you of the grievous impropriety, nay the cruel absurdity of all this proceeding. You talk to me like a parrot about mercy, and compassion, and God’s anger, and so forth, as though you understood what you were saying, and I understood not what I am doing, what I ought to do, and what I have done. Child, you forget yourself, me, and your duty to me. How dared you to profane yonder Testament, and insult your father by placing it before him as you did this morning? Did you do so?’ “‘I did,’ she answered, weeping. “‘You presumptuous girl! forgetful of the fifth commandment!’ “‘Oh, say not so! say not so! I love, reverence you—and I FEAR you, now!’ said Lady Emily, gazing at him with tears running down her cheeks, her dark hair partially deranged, her hands clasped in a supplicatory manner. ‘I prayed to God, first, that I might not be doing wrong; that you might not be angry with me, that if angry, you might forgive me!’ “‘Angry with you? Have I not cause? Never dared daughter do such thing to father before! You presume to rebuke and threaten me—_me_—with the vengeance of Heaven, if I yield not to your sickly dreaming, drivelling sentimentality. Silence!’ he exclaimed, perceiving her about to speak very earnestly. ‘I have not had my eyes closed, I tell you now, for days past—I have observed your changed manner: you have been deliberating long beforehand how to perpetrate this undutifulness! As though my heart had not been already struck as with a thunderbolt from Heaven—you, forsooth, you idle, unthinking child! must strive to stab it—to wound me! to insult me! This is not your own doing: you dared not have thought of it! You are the silly tool of others. Silence! hear me, undutiful girl!