"That means a pittance that would serve to keep life in a pauper, I suppose; and that is to be contingent upon her husband's permission." He made no audible reply to his daughter's speech, and seemed, indeed, so much absorbed in his own thoughts, that Marian doubted if he had heard her; and so the rest of the long evening wore itself out in dismal silence, whilst stealthy footsteps sounded now and then upon the stairs.

Later Mr.Nowell was summoned to a conference with some mysterious person in the shop, whom Marian supposed to be the undertaker; and returning from this interview with a gloomy face, he resumed his seat by the fire.
It seemed very strange to Marian that they two, father and daughter, should be together thus, so near and yet so wide apart; united by the closest tie of kindred, brought together thus after years of severance, yet with no bond of sympathy between them; no evidence of remorseful tenderness on the side of him whose life had been one long neglect of a father's duty.
"How could I expect that he would care for me in the smallest degree, after his desertion of my mother ?" Marian thought to herself, as she meditated upon her father's coldness, which at first had seemed so strange to her.

She had fancied that, what ever his sins in the past had been, his heart would have melted at the sight of his only child.

She had thought of him and dreamed of him so often in her girlhood, elevating him in her romantic fancy into something much better and brighter than he really was--a sinner at best, it is true, but a sinner of a lofty type, a noble nature gone astray.

She had imagined a reunion with him in the days to come, when it should be her delight to minister to his declining years--to be the consolation of his repentant soul.