"The devil she is!" thundered the old man, clenching his fists. "Married, is she?--Jezebel!--May your poor father's ghost haunt her to her dying hour!--Married! To that canting cur the Vicar of Wrexhill? Is it not so?" "Even so, Sir Gilbert." "Heaven help you, my poor children!" said Lady Harrington in accents of the deepest sorrow; "this is a grief that it will indeed be hard to bear!" "And we come to you for counsel how to bear it, my dear lady," said Mowbray, "though little choice is left us. Yet, Helen says, if you tell her that she must submit to call this man her father, it will be easier for her to do it." "Bless her, darling child!" said the old lady, fondly caressing her; "how shall I ever find the heart to bid her do what it must break her heart to think of?" "Bid her call that rascal father?" cried Sir Gilbert. "My Lady Harrington must be strangely altered, Mowbray, before she will do that: she is a very rebellious old lady, and a most prodigious shrew; but you do her no justice, Charles, in believing she would utter such atrocious words." "But what is to become of Helen, my dear Sir Gilbert, if she quarrel with this man?" "Come to us, to be sure,--what's the man to her? Has your precious mother made any settlement upon you all?" "I imagine not; indeed I may say that I am sure she has not." "Am I a prophet, my lady? how did I tell you Mowbray's sentimental will would answer? And has this meek and gentle lady proved herself deserving of all the pretty things I said of her?" "There is but small comfort in remembering how truly, how very truly, your predictions foretold what has happened, Sir Gilbert: and he has predicted that you must come here, my sweet Helen; let this come true likewise." "I cannot leave poor Fanny, Lady Harrington," replied Helen; "I cannot leave my dear and generous friend Rosalind: and yet your offered kindness cheers my heart, and I shall think of it with pleasure and gratitude as long as I live." "But I thought Fanny was a disciple of this Calvinistic gentleman's? If so, it were better she remained with him till she has learned to distinguish hypocrisy from virtue, and cant from true religion. And for Miss Torrington, I shall rejoice to have her for my guest for as long a time as she can find our old-fashioned mansion agreeable to her." "You are very, very kind!" replied the two friends in the same breath. "Then so let it be. Charles, these good girls will stay here for the present; so let us eat our breakfast. Let me save them from the odious spectacle of the Vicar of Wrexhill establishing himself at Mowbray Park, and the future must take care of itself." "But, Fanny," said Helen doubtingly, "she looked so unhappy as she followed my mother in last night, that I feel almost certain her fit of enthusiasm is already over."