"But did she tell you the price she has paid to induce him to lay aside his threats? She did not tell you that, I dare say, did she? Ah, a father's eye is not to be deceived; and her blushes and embarrassments, when giving me her usual kiss, make me dread I know not what. Why, would it not be an atrocious thing to say to a poor girl, whose bread depended on her employer's word, 'Either sacrifice your virtuous principles, and become what I would have you, or quit my house? And if any one should inquire of me respecting the character you have with me, I shall speak of you in such terms that no one will take you into their service.' Well, then, how much worse is it to frighten a fond and affectionate child into surrendering her innocence, by threatening to put her father into prison if she refused, when the brute knows that upon the labour of that father a whole family depends? Surely the earth contains nothing more infamous, more fiendlike, than such conduct." "Ah," replied Madeleine, "and then only to think that with the value of one, only one of those diamonds now lying on your table, we might pay the notary all we owe him, and so take Louise out of his power and keep her at home with us. Don't you see, husband?" "What is the use of your repeating the same thing over and over again? You might just as well tell me that if I were rich I should not be poor," answered Morel, with sorrowful impatience. For such was the innate and almost constitutional honesty of this man, that it never once occurred to him that his weak-minded partner, bowed down and irritated by long suffering and want, could ever have conceived the idea of tempting him to a dishonourable appropriation of that which belonged to another. With a heavy sigh, the unfortunate man resigned himself to his hard fate. "Thrice happy those parents who can retain their innocent children beneath the paternal roof, and defend them from the thousand snares laid to entrap their unsuspecting youth. But who is there to watch over the safety of the poor girl condemned at an early age to seek employment from home? Alas, no one! Directly she is capable of adding her mite to the family earnings, she leaves her dwelling at an early hour, and repairs to the manufactory where she may happen to be engaged. Meanwhile, both father and mother are too busily employed to have leisure to attend to their daughter's comings or goings. 'Our time is our stock in trade,' cry they, 'and bread is too dear to enable us to lay aside our work while we look after our children.' And then there is an outcry raised as to the quantity of depraved females constantly to be met with, and of the impropriety of conduct among those of the lower orders, wholly forgetting that the parents have neither the means of keeping them at home, nor of watching over their morals when away from them." Thus mentally moralised Morel. Then, speaking aloud, he added: