the property."

"Oh! father, how can you?" ejaculated Angela, in an agony of shame.

"You idiot, I won't want you to marry him; I only want you to make a
fool of him. Surely, being of the sex you are, you won't find _that_
an uncongenial occupation."

Angela's blushes had given away to pallor now, and she answered with
cold contempt:

"I don't think you quite understand what a girl feels--at least, what
I feel, for I know no other girls. Perhaps it would be useless for me
to try to explain. I had rather go blind than use my eyes for such a
shameful purpose."

"Angela," said her father, with as much temper as he ever showed now,
"let me tell you that you are a silly fool; you are more, you are an
encumbrance. Your birth," he added, bitterly, "robbed me of your
mother, and the fact of your being a girl deprived our branch of the
family of their rights. Now that you have grown up, you prefer to
gratify your whims rather than help me to realize the object of my
life by a simple course of action that could do no one any harm. I
never asked you to commit yourself in any way. Well, well, it is what
I must expect. We have not seen much of each other heretofore, and
perhaps the less we meet in the future the better."

"You have no right to talk to me so," she answered, with flashing
eyes, "though I am your daughter, and it is cowardly to reproach me
with my birth, my sex, and my dependence. Am I responsible for any of