marry a felon's daughter; and the affectionate mother, with many
elaborate protestations, had "vowed to Master Jonathan, that she would
rather lay him out with her own hands, and a penny on each eye, than see
a Floyd disgrace himself in that 'ere manner."

And uncles, aunts, and cousins, most disinterestedly exhorted that the
obstinate youth be disinherited--"Ay, Mr. Floyd, I wish your son was a
high-minded man like his father; but there's a difference, Mr. Floyd; I
wish he had your true blue yeoman's honour, and the spirit that becomes
his father's son: if the lad was mine, I'd cut him off with a shilling,
to buy a halter for his drab of a wife. Dang it, Mrs. Floyd, it'll never
do to see so queer a Mrs. Jonathan Junior, a standing in your tidy shoes
beside this kitchen dresser."

These estimable counsels were, I grieve to say, of too flattering a
nature to displease, and of too lucrative a quality not to be
continually repeated; until, really, Jonathan was threatened with
beggary and the paternal malediction, if he would persist in his
disreputable attachment.

Nevertheless, Jonathan clung to the right like a hero.

"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think--but I do not believe one
word of it--does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an
angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I.
And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up
were she thrice a felon's daughter. My father and mother," Jonathan went
on to say, "never found a fault in her till now. Who was more welcome on
the hill than pretty Grace? who would oftenest come to nurse some sickly
lamb, but gentle Grace? who was wont, from her childhood up, to run home