though inexpressibly painful to me as your daughter, I could overlook
without one word of reply; but I never will allow you to cast foul
and cowardly reproach upon the memory of the best of mothers--upon the
memory of a wife of whom, father, you were unworthy, and whom, to my own
knowledge, your harshness and severity hurried into a premature grave.
Oh, never did woman pay so dreadful a penalty for suffering herself
to be forced into marriage with a man she could not love, and who was
unworthy of her affection! That, sir, was the only action of her life in
which her daughter cannot, will not, imitate her."

She rose to retire, but her father, now having relapsed into all his
dark vehemence of temper, exclaimed--

"Now mark me, madam, before you go. I say you shall sleep under lock and
key this night. I tell you that I shall use the most rigorous measures
with you, the severest, the harshest, that I can devise, or I shall I
break that stubborn will of yours. Do not imagine for one moment that
you shall overcome me, or triumph in your disobedience. No, sooner than
you should, I would break your spirit--I would break your heart"

"Be it so, sir. I am ready to suffer anything, provided only you will
forbear to insult the memory of my mother."

With these words she sought her own room, where she indulged in a long
fit of bitter grief.

Sir Thomas Gourlay, in these painful contests of temper with his candid
and high-minded daughter, was by no means so cool and able as when
engaged in similar exercitations with strangers. The disadvantage
against him in his broils with Lucy, arose from the fact that he had