"I'm much afraid you'll hear some exceedingly plain English yourself before long--from that same father. He grows singularly savage of an evening when you have retired. How clear lies your duty--why do you so shirk it? Is your conscience taking a holiday? You know better than you speak--I'm positive you do." Many such-like futile conversations passed between them; then befell the accident aforesaid. It placed some sensational information in the hands of Peter, and, little guessing at the result, he hesitated not to avail himself of it. There came an afternoon when he sat with Maurice Malherb; while the master mentioned Grace and inquired how matters progressed in the affair of Peter's courtship. "To tell you truth, a very retrograde business. I had done better to have copied your own unbending methods. But I'm a soft-hearted fool. What says the poet? Those writing men always know such a deal about it! "'He that will win this dame, must do As Love does, when he bends his bow; With one hand thrust the lady from, And with the other pull her home!'" "I'm amazed that any child of mine--but words only waste air now. The wedding day's at hand. She'll be the first to see her own folly when she looks back upon it. Obey she must and shall. To-morrow I purpose to have speech with her. Things have reached a climax. Heaven knows whence she got this sullen and mulish humour. Not from me." "Nor from her mother, I'm very sure. Would she was more like your wonderful lady. "'Prudently simple, providently wary, To the world a Martha and to heaven a Mary.' Annabel is a jewel among her sex." "A wise man chooses his wife," said Malherb, "but it is denied him to choose his daughter. To-morrow, at any rate, we'll try and make the matter clear to her. I hate force. I am naturally a man of mild manners; yet this thick-headed world will never understand me until I clench my fist." "One thing I must beg," interrupted Peter. "Don't surprise her. Don't suddenly appear before dear Grace. It would not be fair. I passed her chamber door yesterday, and by chance it stood ajar. She sat there busy with her needle; and the purpose to which she was putting it nearly startled me into an ejaculation. She does not know that I saw her. Candidly, I wish that I had not done so. There are sad secrets--'She loves a black-hair'd man.' In fact, there is somebody dearer to her than either you or I. What did I see? 'Sight hateful--sight tormenting!' Stars and stripes--stars and stripes--but all stripes to me. I'll swear each one has left a bruise upon my soul!" "What, in God's name, are you ranting about?" cried Malherb impatiently. "Is everybody going mad, or have I already become so?" "You must ask Gracie that question. I saw her enfolded in a mass of red, white, and blue bunting. There is nothing in that. Bunting may stand for joy. "'The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.'