Where husband and wife are not one, it is impossible for the daughter to be one with both, or perhaps with either; and the constant and foolish bickering to which Barbara had been a witness throughout her childhood, had tended rather to poison than nourish respect. Whether Barbara failed to yield as much as Mr. Wylder had a right to claim, I leave to the judgment of my reader, reserving my own, and remarking only that, if his judgment be founded on principles differing from mine, our judgments cannot agree. The idea of parent must be venerated, and may cast a glow upon the actual parent, himself nowise venerable, so that the heart of a daughter may ache with the longing to see her father such that she could love and worship him as she would; but when it comes to life and action, the will of such a parent, if it diverge from what seems to the child true and right, ought to weigh nothing. A parent is not a maker, is not God. We must leave father and mother and all for God, that is, for what is right, which is his very will--only let us be sure it is for God, and not for self. If the parent has been the parent of good thoughts and right judgments in the child, those good thoughts and right judgments will be on the parent's side: if he has been the parent of evil thoughts and false judgments, they may be for him or against him, but in the end they will work solely for division. Any general decay of filial manners must originate with the parents. “I am not a child. I am a woman,” said Barbara; “and I owe it to him who made me a woman, to take care of her.” “Mind what you say. I have rights, and will enforce them.” “Over my person?” returned Barbara, her eyes sending out a flash that reminded him of her mother, and made him the angrier. “If you do not consent here and now,” he said sternly, “to marry Mr. Lestrange--that is, if, after your mother's insolence to lady Ann.--” “My mother's insolence to lady Ann!” exclaimed Barbara, drawing herself, in her indignation, to the height of her small person: but her father would rush to his own discomfiture. “--if, as I say,” he went on, “he should now condescend to ask you--I swear--” “You had better not swear, papa!” “--I swear you shall not have a foot of my land.” “Oh! that is all? There you are in your right, and I have nothing to say.” “You insolent hussy! You won't like it when you find it done!” “It will be the same as if Mark had lived.” “It's that cursed money of your mother's makes you impudent!” “If you could leave me moneyless, papa, it would make no difference. A woman that can shoe her own horse,--” “Shoe her own horse!” cried her father. “Yes, papa!--You couldn't!--And I _made_ two of her shoes the last time! Wouldn't any woman that can do that, wouldn't she--to save herself from shame and disgust--to be queen over herself--wouldn't she take a place as house-maid or shop-girl rather than marry the man she didn't love?” Mr. Wylder saw he had gone too far.