'"You did, or I should not have been here,clandestinely, to-night."
'I am sorry to record it of old Lobbs, but I think he would have struck the cousin, if his pretty daughter,with her bright eyes swimming in tears, had not clung to his arm.
'"Don't stop him, Maria," said the young man; "if he has the will to strike me, let him. I would not hurt a hair of his gray head, for the riches of the world."