the wedding ring. There, let us sleep. Tonight I will speak no more.”
TROUBLE WITH FATHER.
It was a very hot afternoon; and Joris Morgan's machine shop, though open to the morning-breezes, was not by any means a cool or pleasant place. Harleigh was just within the doors, upon entrance he received a cool silence from Joris Morgan; but whether the coolness was of intention or preoccupation, Harleigh did not perceive it. Once unwrapped and settled he trod to the office of Joris Morgan, a small room, intensely warm and sunny at that hour of the day.
“Your servant, Mr Morgan.”
“Yours, most sincerely, Mr Morgan. It is a hot day.”
“That is so. We come near to spring time. Is there anything I can oblige you in, Harleigh?”
Joris asked the question because the manner of the young man struck him as uneasy and constrained; and he thought, “Perhaps he has come to borrow money.” It was notorious that his employees gambled, and were often in very great need of it; and, although Joris had not any intention of risking his gold, he thought it as well to bring out the question, and have the refusal understood before unnecessary politeness made it more difficult. He was not, therefore, astonished when Harleigh Daly answered,—
“Sir, you can indeed oblige me, and that in a matter of the greatest moment.”
“If money it be, Harleigh, at once I may tell you, that I borrow not, and I lend not.”
“Sir, it is not money—in particular.”
“So?”
“It is your daughter Charlotte.”
Then Joris stood up, and looked steadily at the suitor. His large, amiable face had become in a moment hard and stern; and the light in his eyes was like the cold, sharp light that falls from drawn steel.
“My daughter is not for you. Harleigh, it is a wrong to her, if you speak her name.”
“By my honor, it is not! Though I come of as good family as any, and may not unreasonably hope to work my way up, I do assure you, sir, I humbly ask for your daughter's hand as if she were a princess.”
“Your family! Talk not of it.”
“I protest that I love your daughter. I wish above all things to make her my wife.”
“Many things men desire, that they come not near to. My daughter is to another man promised.”
“Look Sir that would be monstrous. Your daughter loves me.”
Joris turned white to the lips. “It is not the truth,” he answered in a slow, husky voice.
“By the sun in heaven, it is the truth! Ask her.”
“Then a great scoundrel are you, unfit with honest men to talk. Ho! Yes, your sword pull from its scabbard. Strike. To the heart strike me. Less wicked would be the deed than the thing you have done.”
“In faith, sir, tis no crime to win a woman's love.”
“No crime it would be to take the money from my purse, if my consent was to it. But into my house to come, and while warm was yet my welcome, with my bread and wine in your lips, to take my gold, a shame and a crime would be. My daughter than gold is far more precious.”
There was something very impressive in the angry sorrow of Joris. It partook of his own magnitude. Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Harleigh not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong massiveness of Mr. Morgan; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite as positive and unchangeable.
Yet he persevered in his solicitation. With a slight impatience of manner he said, “Do but hear me, sir. I have done nothing contrary to the custom of people in my condition, and I assure you that with all my soul I love your daughter.”
“Love! So talk you. You see a girl beautiful, sweet, and innocent. Your heart, greedy and covetous, wants her as it has wanted, doubtless, many others. For yourself only you seek her. And what is it you ask then! That she should give up for you her father, mother, home, her own faith, her own people, her own country,—the poor little one!—for a cold, cheerless house among strangers, alone in the sorrows and pains that to all women come. Love! In God's name, what know you of love?”
“No man can love her better.”
“What say you? How, then, do I love her? I who carried her—in these arms before