“Insolence!” shouted the lawyer.

“The impertinent puppy!” chimed in the woman.

“Come, come!” said the farmer, “too loud talkin’!”

“Then you uphold this girl in her undutiful behavior, do you?” asked Mrs. Kinloch.

“You are amenable to the statutes, Sir,” said the Squire.

Mr. Alford rose to his feet.  “Now you might jest as well get inter yer kerridge an’ drive back ter town,” said he; “you won’t make one o’ them hairs o’ yourn black or white, Square, not by talkin’ all day.”

The lawyer settled his wig in a foaming rage.  “Come, Mrs. Clamp,” said he, “we shall not remain here to be insulted.  Let us go; I shall know how to protect our property, our authority, and honor, from the assault of adventurers and meddlers.”

“I beg your pardon, Sir,” said Mark, “but what was the appellation you gave to the lady just now?  You can call us what you like.”

“Mrs. Clamp, Sir,” he answered, with a portentous emphasis,—­“Mrs. Clamp,—­united to me, Sir, this morning, by the Reverend Mr. Rook, in the holy bands of matrimony.”

They swept out of the house.  Mildred sank to her chair as if stunned.  “O God!” she said, “my mother and father!”

“Poor gal!” said Mr. Alford, “small comfort you’ll hev in sich parents.  But cheer up; you won’t need for friends.”

She looked up through her tears at Mark’s manly face, full now of sympathy, and blessed the farmer for his words.

Mr. Alford, taking Mark aside, said, “You know about Lucy’s runnin’ away, most likely.  Wal, now, ef she could be found, there’s no knowin’ what might happen; for it’s my opinion she knows about Square Kinloch’s affairs.  I thought mebbe you might ‘a’ seen her in York?”

Mark replied, that he did meet her in Broadway late one afternoon, and that she looked as if she would speak; but that he hurried on, for the flaunting style of her dress was not calculated to prepossess the passers by.

“Good gracious! you don’t say so!  Seen her yourself?  Now do you go right back to York an’ hunt her up—­no matter what it costs.”

“But my uncle?”

“We’ll look arter him.”

It was speedily determined, and Mark set out the same day.  Meanwhile, Mildred had promised to go and see Mr. Hardwick and endeavor to make him cheerful.

“It beats all,” said Mr. Alford to his wife.  “Now ’f he should find that unfort’nate gal!  Wal, wal, I begin to think the Lord does look arter things some, even in this world.”

We leave Squire Clamp and his new wife to their happiness; it would not be well to lift the decent veil which drops over their household.  The dark, perchance guilty, past,—­the stormy present, and the retribution of the future,—­let memory and conscience deal with them!

CHAPTER XVI.