The worthy baronet and justice reached home looking very hot and weary, to be met on the step by his daughter. "Where is Sir Mark?" she cried. "My dear, I left him at the Pool," replied Sir Thomas, feebly, for the attack made by his daughter was sharp. "Left him there? Did I not say thou wert to stay and bring him back?" "But, my dear--" "Oh, out upon you!" cried Mistress Anne, stamping her foot in anger. "Fie, father, fie; I try so hard to do justice to thy house, and welcome our guest back as becomes his rank. I try to let him see that he is the visitor of a baronet, and what do you do, my father, but slight him-- leave him to the care of these people at the foundry, for him to stay as he stayed before. It is a shame." Poor Sir Thomas tried to put on his magisterial air, but failed dismally, as he always did when he tried to do battle with his child. He could frighten his different domestics till they trembled in awe of his presence; but his daughter seemed to have so great an influence over him that he was fain to open and shut his lips in fish-like muteness, and obey her to the very letter. It was a great relief to him then when Mistress Anne flounced out of the room, and he heard a door upstairs bang very loudly, being a signal that she had shut herself, angrily, in her own bower, as it was called by the maids. "Poor child," he muttered; "I fear her heart is set on this young knight." "What's that you say?" exclaimed Dame Beckley, who had entered, and heard a part of his speech. "I say, I fear me that her heart is set upon this young knight, my dear." "Tut--tut--tut. Yes, I suppose so," replied the dame. "But the other day it was that Captain Gil." "Ay, she's a headstrong girl," said the baronet; "and we shall have much trouble with her yet. How much she takes after my family, to be sure!" Dame Beckley glanced sidewise at her lord, but she did not speak; and then, hearing that Sir Mark had not returned, and that Sir Thomas did not know whether he would return, she fully divined how it was that the eruption of temper had taken place; and sighing, and wishing her daughter well wed, she retired to cull simples in the garden, and feel thankful that she had outgrown all such troubles of her own. Volume 2, Chapter X. HOW SIR MARK PLAYED HIS CARDS. There was news at the Pool-house next day that Culverin Carr's ship had sailed; Jeremiah Cobbe hearing thereof from his man, Tom Croftly. "Heaven send them a good voyage, master," said the workman. "I hear the girt ship went down the river at daybreak, and there's a brave deal of our work on board." "Yes," said the founder, thoughtfully; and then he began thinking about Gil. "He's gone off, poor boy, and without a word of good-bye. I was rough enough to him yesterday, and yet he showed me a plan that is a little fortune in itself. Poor lad, I like him; but tut--tut; there, it can never be; Mace is no mate for him, and I'm glad that he has gone."