Then came the other and last alternative. And I had to sit still and listen to every _pro_ and _con_ of this stupid converse,--their miserable efforts to reason, or their still more contemptible attempts to jest, and dare not stand up before them and say, 'Hold your slanderous tongues, for she is my daughter,' because, to the first question they would put to me, I must say, 'My name is Davis--Christopher Davis'--ay, 'Grog Davis,' if they would have it so. No, no, girl, all your beauty, all your grace, all your fascinations would not support such a name,--the best horse that ever won the Derby will break down if you overweight him; and so I had to leave my breakfast uneaten and come away how I could. For one brief moment I was irresolute. I felt that if I let them off so easily I 'd pine and fret over it after, and maybe give way to passion some other time with less excuse; but my thoughts came back to you, Lizzy, and I said, 'What signifies about me? I have no object, no goal in life, but her. She must not be talked of, nor made matter for newspaper gossip. She will one day or other hold a place at which slander and malevolence only talk in whispers, and even these must be uttered with secrecy!' I could n't help laughing as I left the room. One of them declined to eat salad because it was unwholesome. Little he knew on what a tiny chance it depended whether that was to be his last breakfast. The devilish pleasure of turning back and telling him so almost overcame my resolution.” “There was, then, an impropriety in my living at Aix as I did?” asked Lizzy, calmly. “The impropriety, as you call it, need not have been notorious,” said he, in angry confusion. “If people will attract notice by an ostentatious display,--horses, equipage, costly dressing, and so on,--the world will talk of them. You could n't know this, but Beecher did. It was his unthinking folly drew these bad tongues on you. It is a score he 'll have to settle with me yet.” “But, dearest papa, let me bear the blame that is my due. It was I--I myself--who encouraged, suggested these extravagances. I fancied myself possessed of boundless wealth; he never undeceived me; nay, he would not even answer my importunate questions as to my family, my connections, whence we came, and of what county.” “If he had,” muttered Grog, “I 'd be curious to have heard his narrative.” “I saw, at last, that there was a secret, and then I pressed him no more.” “And you did well. Had you importuned, and had he yielded, it had been worse for _him_.” “Just as little did I suspect,” continued she, rapidly, “that any reproach could attach to my living in his society; he was your friend; it was at your desire he accepted this brief guardianship; he never, by a word, a look, transgressed the bounds of respectful courtesy; and I felt all the unconstrained freedom of old friendship in our intercourse.”