"Look here, Leslie, I've watched you, my lad, for long enough past. I saw you take a fancy to my darling niece Louie; and I felt as if I should like to come behind and pitch you off the cliff. Then I grew more reasonable, for I found by careful watching that you were not such a bad fellow, after all, and what was worse, it seemed to me that, in spite of her aunt's teaching, Louie was growing up into a clever sensible girl, with only one weakness, and that a disposition to think a little of you." Leslie made an angry gesture. "Come, my lad, I'll speak plainly, and put aside all cynical nonsense. Answer me this: How long have you known my niece?" "What does that matter?" "Much. I'll tell you. About a year, and at a distance. And yet you presume, in your hotheaded, mad, and passionate way, to sit in judgment upon her, and to treat my advice with contempt." "You cannot see it all as I do." "Thank goodness!" muttered Uncle Luke. "You did not witness what I did to-night." "No. I wish I had been there." "I wish you had," said Leslie, bitterly. "Now you are growing wild again. Be calm, and listen. Now I say you have known our child a few months at a distance, and you presume to judge her. I have known her ever since she was the little pink baby which I held in these hands, and saw smile up in my face. I have known her as the patient, loving, unwearying daughter, the forbearing niece to her eccentric aunt--and uncle, my lad. You ought to have said that. I have known her these twenty years as the gentle sister who fought hard to make a sensible man of my unfortunate nephew. Moreover, I have known her in every phase, and while I have openly snarled and sneered at her, I have in my heart groaned and said to myself, what a different life might mine have been had I known and won the love of such a woman as that." "Oh, yes, I grant all that," said Leslie, hurriedly; "but there was the vein of natural sin within." "Natural nonsense, sir!" cried Uncle Luke, angrily. "How dare you! A holier, truer woman never breathed." "Till that scoundrel got hold of her and cursed her life," groaned Leslie. "Yes, trample on me. I suppose I deserve it." "Yes," cried the old man, "if only for daring to judge her, when I tell you that with all my knowledge of her and her life, I dare not. No, my lad, I'm going to sleep on it, and in the morning see if I can't find out the end of the thread, of the clue which will lead us to the truth." "There is no need," groaned Leslie. "We know the truth." "And don't even know who this man is. No, indeed, we do not know the truth. All right, my lad, I can read your looks. I'm a trusting, blind old fool, am I? Very well, jealous pate, but I warn you, I'm right and you're wrong." "Would to Heaven I were! I'd give ten years of my life that it could be proved."