“I think you were very late, too, Law.” “Oh! never mind about that; it does not matter about me. Lottie, listen. A friend--I mean somebody--was speaking to me about him. Did it ever come into your head that he was not an old man, and that such a thing was possible as that he might--it seems too ridiculous to say it--marry again?” “Marry again? you are dreaming!” cried Lottie loudly, in her astonishment. “Yes, while we knew nothing of it. After all, when you come to think of it, when you look at him, you know, he is not so awfully old. One thinks he must be, because he is one’s father. But some of these old beggars are just as silly”--said Law in awestruck tones, “and you can’t stop them doing things as you can a fellow that is young. It is an awful shame! a fellow that is under age, as they call it, you can pull him up, though there’s no harm in him; but an old fellow of fifty, you can’t stop him, whatever nonsense he may set his face to. That’s what I heard last night.” “It is not true. I don’t believe a single word of it,” said Lottie. “You must have been in very strange company, Law,” she added with severity, “to hear all this gossip about papa.” Lottie did not mean to pass such a tremendous sentence on her father; she spoke simply enough. To hear this gossip her brother must have been in haunts such as those that Captain Despard frequented. She did not know what they were, but she knew they were evil; therefore she made use of this weapon instinctively, which she found, as it were, lying by her, not meaning any censure upon her father, only a necessary reproof to Law. “You may say what you please about bad company,” he said, “but that’s what I heard; that he wasn’t so old after all; and what would become of us if he married again? It was not gossip. I believe really, though I was very angry at the time, that it was meant kindly; it was meant for a warning. You would have thought so yourself, if you had been there.” “I do not believe a word of it,” said Lottie; but she had grown pale. She did not ask again who had told him or where he had been; she set herself seriously to prove the thing to be false, which showed that she was not so sure of not believing it as she pretended to be. “It is all a falsehood,” she went on. “Is papa a man to do that sort of thing? Marry! he would have to give us a great many things if he married. He could not afford to spend his money as he does; he would not be allowed to be always out in the evenings as he is now. Why, even poor mamma, she did not give in to him as we are obliged to do; he had to pay a little attention to her--sometimes. And now he has got more used to do what he likes than ever, and has more money to spend; do you think he would give up that _for a wife_?” cried Lottie with disdain. “It only shows that you don’t know papa.”