“My child,” said the Captain, “I am not finding fault. No harm in putting your best foot foremost. I wish you’d do it a little more. At your age you ought to be thinking about getting married. And, to tell the truth, it would be a great convenience to me, and suit my plans beautifully, if you would get married. You mustn’t stand shilly-shallying; let him come to the point: or, if he won’t, my dear, refer him to me.” “I don’t know what you mean,” cried Lottie. Fortunately for her, he had thought her a child up to the time of their migration to St. Michael’s, and she had been subjected to very little advice of this description. But, though she gazed at him with wondering eyes, she knew very well by the instinct of horror and repulsion in her mind what he meant. It gave her a shock of pain and shame which ran like electricity to her very finger points. “I think you must be making a mistake,” she said. “I scarcely know Mr. Ridsdale at all. He has called here twice--on business--for Lady Caroline--and now he has gone away.” “Gone away!” the Captain said, his face lengthening with disappointment and dismay; “gone away! then you’re a fool--a greater fool than I thought you. What’s to become of you, do you ever ask yourself? Good lord, what a chance to throw away! One of the Courtland family--a fellow with a turn for music--that you could have turned round your little finger! And to let him go away! By George,” said the Captain, making a stride towards her, and clenching his fist in the energy of his disapproval, “I don’t believe you’re any child of mine. Clever--you think you’re clever? and so did your mother, poor woman! but you’re an idiot, that is what you are--an idiot! to let such a chance slip through your fingers. Good lord! to think such a fool should be a child of mine!” Lottie stood her ground firmly. She was not afraid of the clenched fist, nor even of the angry voice and eyes, which were more genuine. If there was a slight tremor in her, it was of her own excited nerves. She made no reply; if she had spoken, what could she have done but express her own passionate loathing for his advice, and for his disapproval, and perhaps even for himself? for she had not been brought up to reverence the faulty father, whose evil qualities her mother had discussed in Lottie’s presence as long as she could remember. There had not been any illusion in his children’s eyes after their babyhood, in respect to Captain Despard, and perhaps in the present emergency this was well. She stood and met his fury, pale, but more disdainful than desperate. It was no more than she would have expected of him had she ever thought of the emergency at all.