So far as the events of the night I am describing were concerned, although Mrs. Mallory was perfectly well acquainted with all the circumstances of the case, and also with the fact that the leading man of the night-company who assembled during the season at her house was Miss Clink's father, she had sufficient reasons, in the wish to keep that unfortunate young woman's secret, to prevent her from discovering to him any portion of her knowledge. The same feeling had caused her also to conceal the fact from both father and daughter that accident,--or misfortune rather,--had now brought them together under the same roof. After some time had elapsed, during which we may imagine the old man was made fully acquainted with the situation in which his daughter was placed, he re-entered the room where his companions were assembled. “Lads!” said he, striking the table violently with his fist, while his lips quivered as with an ague, and his eyes rolled with an expression of unusual ferocity, “if I live to go to the gallows for it, old as I am, I 'll cool the blood of that man up at yonder hall for what he 's done to me and mine! To go in there, and see that wench a mother before she is a wife,--her character gone for ever,--ruined,--lost!--why, I say, sink me to perdition this instant! if I don't redden his own hearthstone with his own blood, though I wait for it to the last day of my life. As sure as he sees the day, I'll make his children fatherless--I'll have my knife in him!” “Stop! stop! Mr. Clink!” cried Mrs. Mallory, laying her hand upon his shoulder, “do cool yourself, and do not threaten so terribly.” “Threaten!” he exclaimed; “I say you are as bad as them; and it is high time somebody not only threatened, but did it.--What! isn't it enough that I am ruined as a tradesman for ever, and compelled to this beggarly night-work, in defiance of the laws, for the sake of a paltry existence, not worth holding from one day to another? Isn't this, I say, enough, but must our children be ruined, and shall we be degraded still lower besides? What!--we are _poor_, are we?--and it does not matter because a child is poor what becomes of her! Well, well, it may do for some of _you_,--it may mix with your dastardly spirits very well; but _I_ am of a different metal, lads. I never passed by an injury unrevenged yet; and my memory has not yet got so bad as to let that man slip through it. There's some men I should never forgive, if I lived a thousand years, and some that I would lay my own life down to do five minutes' justice on; but, above them, there is one shall never slip me, though I go the world over after him!”