Her father smiled again, bitterly.
"Yes, I have," said he, with slow emphasis, "and I regret to say, my dear child, that my diagnosis of his character is precisely what I first thought.

Any interest you may feel in that quarter is being applied to a very unworthy object.

The man is one of my discharged employees, a thorough rascal and hard ticket in every way--one of the lowest-bred and most villainous persons yet unhung, I grieve to state.

The fact that he carried you in his arms, and that I owe your preservation to him, is one of the bitterest facts in my life.

Had it been any other man, no matter of what humble birth--" "Father!" she cried, bending forward and gazing at him with strange eyes.