With such a father had Ellen now to do. He had forbidden her all communication with her lover as soon as he suspected that they met, threatening to disown her at once if she disobeyed, and Ellen was returning from a parting interview with Stanhope, in which she had told him of her father’s commands, and rejecting every proposal to elope, had signified, with a burst of tears, her determination to obey her parent, when on reaching the door-step she met Mr. Howard. He was in a towering passion, though he affected at first to conceal it. “Very well, Miss, very well. You’ve seen fit to disobey my orders,” he commenced, “have you? I’ve watched you, you hussy, myself,” he continued, following his daughter into the hall, and closing the door, “what have you to say?” Ellen made a vain attempt to speak, but her emotions overpowered her, and looking up imploringly into his face, she burst into tears. “By G—, Miss, I’m not to be answered this way,” said Mr. Howard, not longer affecting to conceal his rage, and brutally seizing his daughter’s arm he shook it violently, “why don’t you speak? None of your whining: Answer me!” and again he shook her. Never before had her parent used her thus. This personal indignity, added to his brutal language, cut her to the heart, and brought on a fresh flood of tears, which only increased her father’s rage. By this time, too, the servants had gathered in the hall, and were witnesses of the whole of this deplorable scene. “D—n it,” he said, his face flushing with passion, as he again shook her violently, “I’ll bring an answer out of you—I will. Ain’t you going to speak? I told you I’d disown you for this,—and,” here he muttered an oath I dare not repeat, “I will. You and your beggarly, upstart paramour”—oh! had that father a heart?—“may go to the alms-house together. Out of my door this instant. You are no daughter of mine. Out, I say. Open the door, John.” The man hesitated an instant. It only increased the rage of Mr. Howard. “Open the door, I say. By G— am I to be disobeyed by all of you? I’ll remember you for this, you villain—you—” “I’m sure I don’t care,” said the man, almost crying; for he had lived in the family since Ellen was a babe, and loved her as his own, “for if you are going to turn my poor dear mistress out of doors the sooner I follow the better. I’d not live with such a brute,” continued he, boldly, “for millions.” “Out of the house, both of you, out, I say,” roared Mr. Howard, with a volley of curses, for he was now stung to an ungovernable rage, and cared not what he did, “begone!” and taking his daughter by the shoulders he pushed her violently toward the door. Up to this period of the scene, the events of which had passed in less time than we take to describe them, Ellen, stupefied and astonished, had been unable to utter a word. Her father’s unparalleled barbarity called forth continued floods of tears. But she now spoke.