"I must confess that I liked the young man, and he had, I am
told, a very amiable and beautiful mother."
"I have heard my father say so--but she was his first love, and love is
always blind. I should think very little of the moral worth of a woman
who would jilt such a man as my father, to marry a selfish miserly
wretch like Mark Hurdlestone for his money."
"You are right, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Juliet. "Such a woman was
unworthy of your father. Poor Anthony, he has been very unfortunate in
his parents; yet I hoped of him better things."
"You think, Mr. Godfrey, that there is no doubt of his guilt?" asked
Miss Dorothy.
"The girl must know best," returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same
moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We
have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She
was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, not man-like
women."
"He is a scoundrel!" cried the Captain, throwing down his pipe with a
sound that made his daughter start. "He shall never darken my doors
again, and so you may tell him, Mr. Godfrey, from me!"
"This is a severe sentence, but he deserves it!" said Godfrey. "I fear
my father will one day repent that he ever fostered this viper in his
bosom. Yet, strange to say, he always preferred him to me. Report says
that there is a stronger tie between them, but this is a base slander
upon the generous nature of my father.
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