of anger and upbraiding; and the thoughts that followed this confession to herself stunned and bewildered her; and for once that they made her dizzy with hope, ten times they made her sick with fear.  For an instant she planned to become and to be all he could wish her; to change her very nature for him.  And then a great gush of pride came over her, and she set her teeth tight together, and determined that he should either love her as she was or not at all.  Unless he could take her with all her faults, she would not care for his regard; “love” was too noble a word to call such cold, calculating feeling as his must be, who went about with a pattern idea in his mind, trying to find a wife to match.  Besides, there was something degrading, Jemima thought, in trying to alter herself to gain the love of any human creature.  And yet, if he did not care for her, if this late indifference were to last, what a great shroud was drawn over life!  Could she bear it?

From the agony she dared not look at, but which she was going to risk encountering, she was aroused by the presence of her mother.

“Jemima! your father wants to speak to you in the dining-room.”

“What for?” asked the girl.

“Oh! he is fidgeted by something Mr. Farquhar said to me and which I repeated.  I am sure I thought there was no harm in it, and your father always likes me to tell him what everybody says in his absence.”

Jemima went with a heavy heart into her father’s presence.

He was walking up and down the room, and did not see her at first.

“O Jemima! is that you?  Has your mother told you what I want to speak to you about?”

“No!” said Jemima.  “Not exactly.”

“She has been telling me what proves to me how very seriously you must have displeased and offended Mr. Farquhar, before he could have expressed himself to her as he did, when he left the house.  You know what he said?”

“No!” said Jemima, her heart swelling within her.  “He has no right to say anything about me.”  She was desperate, or she durst not have said this before her father.

“No right!—­what do you mean, Jemima?” said Mr. Bradshaw, turning sharp round.  “Surely you must know that I hope he may one day be your husband; that is to say, if you prove yourself worthy of the excellent training I have given you.  I cannot suppose Mr. Farquhar would take any undisciplined girl as a wife.”  Jemima held tight by a chair near which she was standing.  She did not speak; her father was pleased by her silence—­it was the way in which he liked his projects to be received.

“But you cannot suppose,” he continued, “that Mr. Farquhar will consent to marry you——­”

“Consent to marry me!” repeated Jemima, in a low tone of brooding indignation; were those the terms upon which her rich woman’s heart was to be given, with a calm consent of acquiescent acceptance, but a little above resignation on the part of the receiver?—­