Yes, that was the word; _obey_, Mrs.Martha Dutton." "And what did _you_ promise, at the same time, Frank ?" exclaimed the wife, from whose bruised spirit this implied accusation was torn in an agony of mental suffering.
"Nothing but what I have honestly and manfully performed.

I promised to provide for you; to give you food and raiment; to let you hear my name, and stand before the world in the honourable character of honest Frank Dutton's wife." "Honourable!" murmured the wife, loud enough to be heard by both the Admiral and Mildred, and yet in a tone so smothered, as to elude the obtuse sense of hearing, that long excess had left her husband.

When this expressive word had broken out of her very heart, however, she succeeded in suppressing her voice, and sinking into a chair, concealed her face in her hands, in silence.
"Mildred, come hither," resumed the brutalized parent.

"_You_ are my daughter, and whatever others have promised at the altar, and forgotten, a law of nature teaches you to obey me.

You have two admirers, either of whom you ought to be glad to secure, though there is a great preference between them--" "Father!" exclaimed Mildred, every feeling of her sensitive nature revolting at this coarse allusion to a connection, and to sentiments, that she was accustomed to view as among the most sacred and private of her moral being.