“We will dispense with that formula,” said her father, with a chilly smile which froze her fervour; “perhaps this will teach you to refrain from hasty judgment. There can scarcely be a case, let me entreat you to believe, in which I shall not be the best judge of us two.” “Yes, papa,” she said submissively: then added with a timid look, “but would it not have been better to have stayed and met it in the face, whatever it was? To be unfortunate is not any harm. What could ruin do to us, but to make us poor? Papa----” A sharp laugh from him cut her short; he could have struck her as he struck Janey when she found out his disguise, but he did not dare to treat the elder sister so, and she was more easily managed in the other way. “It seems to me,” he said, “that you are doing precisely what you have just promised not to do. We have agreed that I am the best judge, and the judge I mean to be, in my own concerns. Therefore go to bed, and recollect that to-morrow you are Miss Harford--and know nothing about that other name.” She shrank a little away, looking at him with piteous eyes. “Yes, papa,” she said; “but----” and stood looking with a beseeching, tender entreaty. She clasped her hands, but she did not say anything, though every moving line of her face, the glimmer of moisture in her eyes, the quiver in her lips, all spoke. In his impatience he stamped his foot on the floor. “By Jove! you will drive me mad,” he cried, “with your fancies and your hesitations. Do what I tell you--hold your tongue, if you are so scrupulous about an innocent social pretence. What does it matter to those French clowns what name I call myself by? Will they be any the wiser? And I hold that a man has as much right to his mother’s name as his father’s. It is the same thing. There, Helen, I forgive your nonsense, because you are tired out, poor child! Go to bed.” “Yes, papa,” she said, but still she did not budge. All this time the voices and noises were going on below, sounds of disputation, quick fire of talk, more vivacious and louder in tone than anything English; outside and in, there were sounds of conversation going on. All this babel of sound continued while these two quiet English persons had their explanation, which meant so much; the rest meant nothing. When Helen thought of it after, she always remembered the discussion in the _salle à manger_, and the clatter of words which Jeannette on the top storey flung down to her mistress below-stairs.