"You consider it wickedly disrespectful and rebellious no doubt, but I say I'm no longer a child, and so the text, 'Children obey your parents'--which I know is just on the end of your tongue--doesn't apply to me."
"The Bible doesn't say obey till you are of age, then do as you please. You are not seventeen yet, and Isaac was twenty when he submitted to be bound and laid upon the altar."
"Well, when I go to the altar, it shall be leaning on Dick's arm," said Enna, laughing. "I don't care if he is wild; I like him, and intend to marry him too."
"That he will run through his property in a few years, and perhaps become an habitual drunkard and abusive to his wife."
"I mean to risk it anyhow," returned Enna sharply, "so it is not worth while for my friends to waste their breath in lecturing me on the subject."
"Oh, Enna! you can't expect a blessing, if you persist in being so undutiful; I think it would be well for you if your father were more like mine."
"Indeed! I wouldn't be your father's daughter for anything."
The human heart! 'tis a thing that lives In the light of many a shrine; And the gem of its own pure feelings gives Too oft on brows that are false to shine; It has many a cloud of care and woe To shadow o'er its springs, And the One above alone may know The changing tune of its thousand strings.
Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dinsmore were most anxious to promote Elsie's happiness, and in order to that to win her to forgetfulness of her unworthy suitor. Being Christians they did not take her to the ball-room, the Opera, or the theater (nor would she have consented to go had they proposed it), but they provided for her every sort of suitable amusement within their reach. She was allowed to entertain as much company and to pay as many visits to neighbors and friends as she pleased.
But a constant round of gayety was not to her taste; she loved quiet home pleasures and intellectual pursuits far better. And of these also she might take her fill, nor lack for sympathizing companionship; both parents, but especially her father, being of like mind with herself. They enjoyed many a book together, and she chose to pursue several studies with him.
And thus the weeks and months glided away not unhappily, though at times she would be possessed with a restless longing for news from Egerton, and for the love that was denied her; then her eyes would occasionally meet her father's with the old wistful, pleading look that he found so hard to resist.