"Then your guardian was meant for small matters! But what was the wonder to-day?" "No wonder at all. Mrs. Daldy insulted my father, and I sent her out of his house." "What made her insult my brother?" "My refusal to marry her puppet and puppy." "Clement Daldy! Did she propose such a thing? She must think very highly of you!’ "Then I think very lowly." "And you declined, did you, Clara?" "No. I refused." "Very good. No one shall force you; there is plenty of time to consider the subject." "One moment is too much." "Clara, I have long noticed in you a rude, disrespectful, and I will say (in spite of your birth) a low and vulgar manner towards me, your uncle and guardian. Once for all, I will not permit it, child." "_Child_ you call me, do you? Me, who am just seventeen, and have lived seven such years as I have, and no one else!" He answered quite calmly, and looking coldly at me: "I never argue with women. Much less with girls. Mrs. Daldy comes back to-morrow. You will beg her pardon, as becomes a young lady who has forgotten herself. The other question may wait." "I thought, sir, that you had travelled far, and in many countries." The abrupt inquiry startled him, and his thoughts seemed to follow the memory. "What if I have?" he asked, at length, and with a painful effort. "Have you always found women do just what you chose?" He seemed not to listen to me; as if he were out of hearing: then laughed because I was looking at him. "Clara," he said, "you are an odd girl, and a Vaughan all over. I would rather be your friend than your enemy. If you cannot like me, at least forget your dislike of me, and remember that I am your uncle, and have tried to make you love me." "And what if I do not?" "Then I must keep you awhile from the management of this property. My dear brother would have wished it, until you recover your senses; and not an acre of it is legally yours." This he said so slowly, and distinctly, and entirely without menace, that, knowing his manner, I saw it was the truth, at least in his opinion. Strange as it may seem, I began at once to revolve, not the results of dispossession and poverty on myself, or even on my mother, but the influence which the knowledge of this new fact must have on my old suspicions, surmises, and belief. "Will the property pass to you?" I asked. "Yes, if I choose: or at any rate the bulk of it." "What part will be yours? Do you mean to say the house?--" "Never mind now. I would rather leave things as they are, if you will only be more sensible." "I will not disguise my opinions for a hundred Vaughan Parks, or a thousand Vaughan Palaces; no, nor even to be near my father’s bones." "Very well," he said, "just as you like. But for your mother’s sake, I give you till Christmas to consider." "If you bring back Mrs. Daldy, I shall leave the door as she enters it."