“Why, father, dearest father, why, I beseech you, did you not tell me this, for this is, indeed, great news”—and she burst into a flood of passionate tears; but they were tears of joy. Alas! alas! poor Margaret, the last tears of joy that she should thenceforth shed forever. “What, what!” cried the old man, startled by her vehemence, and by her sudden fit of weeping, “what tidings? I did tell you, surely.” “Not,” she returned, forgetting every thing in the joy of the moment, “not that our friend and neighbor, Colonel Thornhill, has been stricken a banneret by the king’s own hand, for his glorious deeds in the relief of Basing-House; not that he has been ennobled, and created a baronet—Thornhill of Thornhill-Royal. Oh, happy, happy day!”—and again she burst into tears, and clasped her hands to her heart, as if she were fearful that it would burst from the excess of happiness. “And, I beseech you, what may it concern Mistress Margaret Clavering,” asked silly Andrew Acton, “that a beggerly gentleman, scarcely a gentleman, indeed, at all, should be rapped over the costard with the flat of an old rapier, under a rag of painted bunting?” “What does it concern me, sir?” she burst forth, her eyes lightning glorious indignation as she spoke, “that my promised husband has won deathless honor, by his good sword, in a great and righteous cause? Whom should it, then, concern—or what should concern me more than such tidings?” “Your promised husband, Mistress Margaret!” “Your promised husband, minion!” thundered Sir Hugh, in almost inarticulate fury. “My promised husband!” “I thought I had that honor!” faltered the witless baronet. “You thought, sir—you _thought_!” she replied, contemptuously. “This is the first time I have ever heard that _you thought_ at all! Now, mark me well, Sir Andrew Acton, and let it, I pray you, be once and for all. I think you never asked me to become your wife; and I know, that if you had done so, and if you had been a man and a gentleman, instead of a paltroon and a winebibber, and almost an idiot, I had made answer, as I make answer now—never! never! never! The wife of the grave, if God will it so, but the wife of Sir Andrew Acton, never! Now are you answered, sir? If you are, and if you have one drop of gentle blood in your veins, one touch of gentle feeling in your heart, you will torment me no further, but begone, and leave me, as you have made me, wretched.” But he simpered, and stood there unabashed, dangling his bonnet, and shuffling his feet, and making no movement to withdraw, until Sir Hugh, who saw that the decisive moment had arrived, bowed his head gravely and said, “I pray you leave us awhile, now, Sir Andrew; I would confer alone with my daughter. I will see you again to-morrow.”